Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation

Local racing sector expands

Mar 2, 2008
By DEBBIE HALL - Bulletin Staff Writer. About 150 speed enthusiasts from Mexico, Canada and other areas around the country were expected to attend an open house Saturday at Darrell Cox Racing (DCR), LLC, following the company’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new Ridgeway facility on Friday.

Citing the Martinsville Speedway, where “most of our racing ... is based on left turns,” Jim Adams, chairman of the Henry County Board of Supervisors, said Cox and his team have “worked very hard to make things go fast in a straight line.

“Their work in the SRT-4 drag racing world is well regarded” and opens the county up to “another sector in racing,” Adams said.

The company equips four-cylinder Dodge SRT-4 vehicles with performance engines used for drag racing and street performance.

“We build race engines, race engine parts and after market performance parts,” Cox said Friday at his facility on Doyle Road off Virgnia 87 near the state line.

DCR is among 100 vendors providing a similar service, he said. “We cost more than” other vendors “but our work speaks for itself ... We warranty engines. Not many people do that.”

About 95 percent of the company’s customer base is made up of “street enthusiasts” (ordinary drivers) who want 600 horsepower from a 4-cylinder car that comes from the factory with only 140 to 250 horsepower.

The company also builds the only automatic transmissions to handle the heft of the larger horsepower engines, said Jennifer Cox, operations manager and Darrell’s wife.

While the company concentrates on SRT-4s, it also is looking to the future.

SRT-4s were only produced between 2003-2005, Darrell Cox said. Originally there were 40,000 SRT-4s, but only “30-some thousand” remain in existence.

While the company’s market with that model still has not reached its peak, products for another model, the Dodge Caliber, have been developed.

When the market for SRT-4s declines, the company hopes the Caliber will create a new market, Cox said.

The company’s products are available at the Ridgeway site as well as a handful of dealers in Arizona, Texas, Florida, California, Ohio and New Jersey, Cox said, and the company hopes to expand its dealer base.

Business also is conducted at the company’s Website, www.dcrsrt.com.

DCR ships five to seven engines each month for customers to install and averages major installations on 10 vehicles in the same period, Cox said.

“We’re now starting to ship outside the country” and members of the military “are our biggest customer,” he added.

The Coxes and their 7-months-old daughter, Danika, live in an area above the facility.

“I walk to work everyday,” Cox said, and that helps keep his focus on racing and allows him to put his energy into “providing jobs for my employees.”

Cox has a total of 11 employees — nine full-time and two part-time. He are plans to hire two more full-time employees.

The company also is beginning expansion projects, with a concrete slab in place for a storage facility and expansions to the machine shop and other areas of the business in the works.

Plans also underway to build onto the facility to make way for a “Dyno room” that “will appeal to anyone in the community who wants to know the performance of their vehicle,” Jennifer Cox said.

A North Carolina native, Darrell Cox said he opted to locate the business in Ridgeway after traveling extensively for a number of years.

“I’ve been everywhere,” he said. “And I like it here.”

Mark Heath, president and CEO of the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp., said Friday the company’s relocation from North Carolina to the Martinsville-Henry County community “is evidence that our motorsports industry continues to grow.”

Motorsports is one of the EDC’s target sectors, he said.

The new company also is a “great asset to our motorsports initiative” which includes the program at Patrick Henry Community College, Arrington Engines and HT Motorsports.

James “Kook” Clark, Martinsville’s vice mayor, welcomed DCR and said city officials look forward to working with the company “to help this become a great business.”