SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/726957
from the top team. I was still under contract to Kawasaki and I still did tons of things for years after, I just didn't want to be the guy. Unfortunately, the next year at the 1995 SCORE Baja 500, that's when Danny Hamel died. I think that should have been me leaving town that June morning. I was already starting to build my pre-runner, and my goal was to get involved with a team and eventually get a cage around me. In 1995 I did two races for Walker Evans. That was my first real break. Walker gave me a shot, I drove Laughlin and the 1000. I finished, but I had some engine issues. I did lead for a little bit. It was a great experience. I think I ended up sixth or seventh. In 1996 I started driving for the MacPherson team. Back then Joe MacPherson was huge in our sport. I drove for them from '96-'99. The first three years I drove Little Mac, the Class 7 truck. Immediately we were dominating. I don't know which was my first win with Little Mac but we won a couple of championships and won just about everything in that truck. My big break came in 1999 when they put me in the Trophy Truck, Big Mac. I put two really good races together with it. At the SCORE Baja 1000 in 1999, I was second, so that was a solid run. That was the year Mark Post bottlenecked the whole pack up in the pine forest. Larry Ragland was the only person in front of Post; he was second on the road and I was third at the time. I came around a corner and there is a cliff off to the left and a bank on the right and he punched the tree and broke the steering and was wedged in blocking the road with no way around him. Within minutes there were 10 Trophy Trucks all stopped, meanwhile Larry Ragland put 13 minutes on the field. Mark's co-driver got in and floored it; he plowed but he got it moved just enough for us to get by. Then it looked like a Le Mans start, everybody is standing around, I was still in the truck but the mechanics are out, some of the drivers are out and walking around trying to figure out how to move Mark's truck out of the way. I'll never forget it, guys are running to their trucks. My guy jumped in, slid across the hood, crawled in through the front, and yelled: "GO GO!" I told him to get buckled in since we were the first car in line and no one could pass us. Once he was buckled in I took off. I was reeling Ragland in, we would get closer and closer; then I got a flat. We had a really good run and finished second overall. Those are some big memorable moments for me. SJ: Where did you go from the MacPherson team? LR: In 1999 I was called by Mark Johnson at PPI who was my old team manager at Kawasaki. In 2000 we had the Nevada 2000 and SCORE Baja 2000. They needed a second driver for Ivan Stewart for those races and Mark picked me. The goal was, as Ivan retired, I would ROESELER IN 2008 DRIVING WITH THE NORMAN RACING TEAM. 028 SCORE JOURNAL