Sox & Martin Vs. Richard Petty – Superbird Match Race!

Two tribute Superbirds recreating NASCAR’s most famous 1970 rivalry meet again in 1991, this time on a Columbus, Ohio drag strip neither aero car was ever built to run. The Sox and Martin and Richard Petty liveries square off in an exhibition match race that still splits fans down the middle decades later. Watch to see how a car engineered for 200-mph ovals handles a quarter mile instead.

In 1970, Richard Petty was winning on NASCAR’s fastest superspeedway ovals while Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin were flat destroying the field on quarter-mile drag strips, two of the most recognizable liveries in Mopar racing that never once lined up against each other. Two decades later, at the 1991 Mopar Nationals in Columbus, Ohio, those same colors lined up again, this time nose to nose on a quarter-mile drag strip, a surface neither winged Superbird was ever engineered to run. The cars pointed down the strip that day were tributes, not the genuine NASCAR machines, but the crowd reaction suggests almost nobody in the stands cared about that distinction. What happened when 200-mph aero cars tried drag racing instead?

Built for Daytona, Not the Quarter Mile

The Plymouth Superbird’s nose cone and towering rear wing existed for one reason: to keep the car planted at 190-plus mph around NASCAR’s biggest superspeedways, not to launch hard off a starting line. As several viewers who watched this footage pointed out, these cars ran unusually tall, high-geared rear axles tuned for 200-mph top speeds, the opposite of what a drag racer wants for a quick 60-foot time. That mismatch shows on the tree here; the Superbirds spend the first hundred feet fighting their own gearing before the big-block Mopar power finally starts to translate into forward motion. It’s part of what makes the exhibition genuinely interesting instead of just nostalgic, watching a car built for one very specific job attempt a completely different one.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Tribute Cars, Real Rivalry

Neither Superbird on the strip that day belonged to Petty or to Sox and Martin themselves; both were tribute builds, painted and lettered to recreate the two most famous liveries of the winged-car era, a detail the video’s own description spells out plainly. That hasn’t stopped years of comment-section arguments over which car would have really won, arguments the uploader has had to referee more than once. The tributes matter because genuine 1970 Superbirds are far too rare and valuable to risk on a drag strip; this is likely the closest most fans at National Trail Raceway would ever get to seeing the Petty and Sox and Martin color schemes race each other in person.

Two Mopar Legends Who Never Actually Raced Each Other

The Sox and Martin name belonged to the most feared Super Stock and Pro Stock operation of the era, pure drag racers who never fielded a NASCAR entry, known for methodical engine work that squeezed every legal horsepower out of Mopar’s 426 Hemi. Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin took the very first NHRA Pro Stock world championship in 1970, the same season Petty was chasing superspeedway wins in a winged Plymouth. Richard Petty, meanwhile, was already a two-time NASCAR champion by 1970, driving for Plymouth in a Superbird built around the same aerodynamic principles as the exhibition car in this footage. NASCAR’s own rules ended the winged-car era almost as soon as it began; after the 1970 season the sanctioning body restricted aero cars like the Superbird to a 305-cubic-inch engine, a displacement cut steep enough that no team bothered running one in 1971. That rule is part of why tribute cars and exhibition runs like this one matter, since the real Superbirds only raced competitively for a single season before regulation ended them.

What the Elapsed Times Reveal

Commenters who watched closely enough to read the time slips put both cars in the 13-to-14-second range for the quarter mile, respectable for a car this heavy and this aerodynamically compromised for straight-line work. One viewer noted they had owned a 440-six-pack era Mopar that ran 14.08 at 108 miles per hour on street tires with nothing more than headers added, a useful reference point for what these Superbirds, with their similar big-block power, were realistically capable of once the gearing stopped fighting them. For cars never intended to see a drag strip, those numbers hold up.

Why Match Races Like This Still Happen

Exhibition match races between tribute or restored muscle cars remain a staple of events like the Mopar Nationals precisely because they let fans see cars in motion that insurance and rarity would otherwise keep parked on a show field. National Trail Raceway, a fixture of central Ohio drag racing since the 1960s, has hosted this kind of gentleman’s-agreement racing for decades, no championship points on the line, just two owners who built cars around a piece of history and wanted to see what happened when they lined up side by side.

The Verdict the Comments Can’t Agree On

Years after this footage was shot, the video’s comment section is still split down the middle between Petty loyalists and Sox and Martin die-hards, each side citing oval-track pedigree or drag-strip know-how as the deciding factor. The uploader has repeatedly reminded viewers that both cars are tributes built to celebrate the liveries rather than settle old scores, but that hasn’t slowed the debate one bit. It’s a reminder that some rivalries, even fictional ones recreated decades later, refuse to stay settled.

Where Real Superbirds Stand Today

Genuine 1970 Plymouth Superbirds, of which Chrysler built roughly 1,935 to satisfy NASCAR’s homologation rules, now regularly sell into six and seven figures at auction, making tribute builds like the ones in this video the only realistic way most enthusiasts will ever see the shape run hard. That scarcity is exactly why events like the Mopar Nationals lean so heavily on recreations; a well-built tribute lets the car do what it was designed for without risking an irreplaceable piece of NASCAR history.

A Piece of Mopar Culture That Refuses to Fade

More than three decades after this footage was captured, it keeps circulating because it captures something modern muscle car content rarely does: two ordinary owners, not a stunt team or a studio budget, recreating a piece of racing folklore just because they could. That homemade, low-stakes quality is part of the appeal; nobody involved was chasing sponsorship or a viral moment, they just wanted to see the Petty colors race the Sox and Martin colors one more time.

One More Reason the Debate Never Dies

Footage this grainy and this clearly homemade rarely survives online for over three decades without a dedicated fanbase keeping it alive, and the fact that new commenters still discover this exhibition run today says as much about the enduring pull of the winged-car era as it does about either driver’s skill behind the wheel.

Watch the full video above. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter