RJ
A Southern California native, RJ has been involved in racing since the age of 14, starting motocross in 1973 in local events, and desert off-road racing the following year. After a few years competition RJ secured a supported ride from Premier Yamaha of Huntington Beach, resulting in a 2nd in the National Hare Scrambles in the 125cc class in 1981. Continuing through the 80′s he raced all the way up to 1998, joining the Team T Racing outfit based in Las Vegas in the Best of the Desert racing series as crew chief and sometimes as rider.
Retiring from motorcycle racing in ’99 he concentrated his efforts on his business, running a machine shop in Upland, CA. His main product was the Pull-Rite Tool, a plumber’s tool, but he also continued making custom components for rally cars and off-road racecars. Located next door to the machine shop was B&D Automotive, builder of several rally cars and the prep shop for Nick Taylor’s Toyota Corolla.
Through Bill Gutzmann at B&D, R.J. made parts for Nick, as well as other teams such as the Knight Motorsports Rally Team and Wide Open Adventures running Baja Challenge cars. As a sideline, RJ also served as the crew chief for the #4 Baja car in 2003 which took the 4th place in the Challenge race, driven by previous Baja winner Ryan Thomas, Wally Fisk and Ryan Millen , son of Rally legend Rod. Since then he has worked on chase crews for the Baja 1000 several times.
When Bill Gutzmann retired, Nick’s rally effort moved into the machine shop where they continued the build up of the Subaru.
Today, RJ’s business is in Ontario CA, where he still makes a variety of machine parts for Off Road, Rally, and Road race cars, as well as hardware for the cellular communication industry.
As engineer and fabricator of many of the custom parts of the Impreza, RJ will also be sitting alongside Nick as the co-driver, navigating the team to their successes.
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