Herb McCandless had to see it for himself.

The Pro Stock legend, known for his prowess shifting a four-speed transmission, received a call approximately two years ago informing him his renowned 1972 Dodge Demon had been located in Buffalo, NY, sitting in a basement.

McCandless was the only one who could say for sure if the classic Mopar was authentic.

“Once I looked at it I immediately knew that it was the right car because I did a lot of things to this car that only me and Gale Mortimer knew about,” McCandless admitted. “The car was found there and Todd Warner (St. Petersburg, Fla.) bought the car and sent it to Eric Linburg over in Minnesota [for restoration].”

Herb McCandless had to see it for himself.

The Pro Stock legend, known for his prowess shifting a four-speed transmission, received a call approximately two years ago informing him his renowned 1972 Dodge Demon had been located in Buffalo, NY, sitting in a basement.

McCandless was the only one who could say for sure if the classic Mopar was authentic.

“Once I looked at it I immediately knew that it was the right car because I did a lot of things to this car that only me and Gale Mortimer knew about,” McCandless admitted. “The car was found there and Todd Warner (St. Petersburg, Fla.) bought the car and sent it to Eric Linburg over in Minnesota [for restoration].”

McCandless was taken aback by the surprisingly good condition the car was in.

“Considering the fact it was a 1972 car and this was thirty something years later,” McCandless added. “The car hadn’t been cut up or butchered up bad; the firewall was cut but other than that the car was really in good shape. It still had disc brakes on it, same calipers, same rear brakes and I knew that because I took some stuff apart and I knew some stuff that I lightened was still there. It was all still there like we built it in 72.”

What makes this Sox & Martin Pro Stocker the apple of McCandless’ eye?

Simply put, the Mopar was a winner. There was a three month stretch in 1972 where the car was virtually unbeatable. McCandless and the Demon were a part of the United States Racing group that won four of those races in a row and the only reason he lost the fifth was because of a broken clutch.

McCandless might have loved his Mopar but the feeling wasn’t mutual amongst his fellow competitors.

“Jenkins was laughing at me that night and he said ‘I’m glad to see you can lose a race. I was wondering if you could,” recalled McCandless.

The Demon wasn’t illegal, as McCandless said, but the spirit of the rules … well, the car was 100-percent legal. Of course it was legal says    McCandless while brandishing a smile.

“We moved some stuff around on the car and everybody was doing that back then,” McCandless admitted. “NHRA would write the rules then we’d take the rules and build the car so that everything matched around their rules. (NHRA) would take everything and measure everything; they were happy with the car and we were too. We were out to get weight distribution and make the car as light as we could make it.

“There was not a nut, bolt or screw that went on that car that wasn’t lightened, worked on, massaged or whatever. Every bolt that held the car together was rifle drilled. There weren’t a lot of aluminum bolts so we just made our steel bolts as light as we could make them. We even cut six pounds of the ladder bars. We took three pounds off the rocker arms in the engine.”

 The Demon was constructed by McCandless and Gale Mortimer in the Sox & Martin race shop and for McCandless, there was added satisfaction in taking the car’s innovation to the next level.

“I mean every part of that car was hand-built, hand massaged,” he continued. “We were the first people to put the master cylinder under the dash. Nobody ever noticed the car didn’t have a master cylinder on it. It was up under the dash because the Hemis are notorious for not being able to get the valve covers off of them. We moved all that stuff and did a lot of things like that. We actually widened the frame-rails out and put an e-body camber in the car because of header clearance. There was no advantage to that other than the fact that we could get the headers in it.  

“People would look at our car and go ‘boy, your headers sure do fit nice.’ They couldn’t figure out what we had done and if you look at the car you can see that the frame rails are wider. I drove a lot of cars in my life and this was by far the best car I ever drove.”

The Sox & Martin Demon began life as two quarter-panels and a top. Chrysler originally sent McCandless a body and they took it apart. From there, the innovation began. And the biggest contributor to the car’s success was related to the floorboard of the car. While many people adjusted the car’s height through the suspension, McCandless confided their group raised the floorboard by two inches so the suspension didn’t have to be adjusted.

Because of these tricks, restoration was sometimes a challenging affair. Just finding the correct parts was the main objective.

“It was more of a take it apart, paint it and put it back together situation,” said McCandless. “The engine and the transmission was gone so he had to find all the parts for the engine, the intake, and the 4500s. Remaking the hood because it was gone, somebody had put a Duster grill and stuff on the front of it and the fenders, hood and stuff for this car we actually made [those parts on it now]. Really it was more a matter of finding all the engine parts and getting a transmission and all the right stuff together.”

One of McCandless’ proudest moments came during the most recent NHRA U.S. Nationals when the Demon was unveiled in celebration of Pro Stock’s 40th anniversary. He was able to fire the car up and has since made a few laps down the drag strip.

“I’ll do a burnout right here in the floor if you want me to,” McCandless proclaimed with a smile during the Performance Racing Industry show last week. “They’d probably get a little upset at us but the car runs.”

And that’s something that pleases McCandless and serves as a fitting tribute.

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