On top of their sponsorship role, Rick and Rickie Jones have a
strong commitment to supporting
customers in the PDRA. Names like Pat
Stoken, John Montecalvo and Billy
Albert have driven RJ Race Cars for
years and are a testament to the
caliber of chassis produced by the
Jones family and their team. Rick has
been involved in every aspect of
racing at one time or another and
believes that staying involved with
the fierce competition of Pro Stock
pushes him to build a better product
for his customers.
“When you completely understand how to race a car I think it
no doubt makes you a better car
builder because you understand,
thoroughly, the car inside and out,”
Jones said of balancing his crew chief
responsibilities with his businesses.
“It’s something I think we get better
at all the time. It helps our parts
business, too, as far as building
better parts for our customers. It’s a
win-win.
“We’re continually
developing new products so our
customers can have better products all
the time. Our goal is to offer the
racers a great product at a very fair
price with a good delivery. I just
want to take this time to thank
everybody for their support in 2014.
It enables us to run this business and
sell cars and parts worldwide. We’re
very fortunate.”
Jones was especially fortunate in 2014. He and the team at
Elite Motorsports had a season most
racers only dream about. “It was truly
a dream season,” told the Crew Chief .
“It’s hard to put into words. For me,
everything that we’ve done, being a
single car team, we had very limited
testing this year comparatively, there
were times we were definitely under
funded, but even with all those things
against us and missing two races, to
go out and win six races and the K&N
Horsepower Challenge, set the ET and
speed records and win the Championship
in one year was definitely fulfilling.
Sometimes it’s surreal to me, like did
it really happen.”
Throughout the season there was no denying Erica’s faith and
how that affected her philosophy
toward racing and her team. She was
not alone in relying on God during the
tough moments. Even down to the final
round the Elite Team was assured that
God was with them in their battle.
“God is with us,” Jones reflected. “Everything that happened
with the Championship - that was truly
God’s hands that Sunday. On TV we were
running good, but it was still a very
difficult day. When you’re out there
truly by yourself as a single car
team, you have to fight, fight, fight.
Rickie gets Bible verses on his phone
every day. After the semi finals we
were all concerned about having to
race Jason and it all coming down to
one run. All day long Rickie had never
got his Bible verse message, but in
between the semi and final rounds his
phone beeped with the Bible verse. The
verse was Exodus 14:14, ‘The Lord will
fight for you; you need only to be
still.’ The hair stood up on the back
of our necks. It was the perfectly
timed reminder that God is here to
help us. Everything worked out. We’re
blessed.”
Being a part of that Championship team is something that Jones
will take with him for the rest of his
life. Across the board - from building
championship caliber race cars and
parts, to sponsorship endeavors to
tuning and consulting duties - the
hard work and proficiency of the Jones
family is evident. Look for more good
things from RJ Race Cars and
Quarter-Max in 2015.
For more on the world’s premier eighth mile drag racing
organization visit
www.pdra660.com.
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PRESS CONTACT: Lisa Collier
Professional Drag Racers Association
lisa@pdra660.com
704.692.4636