Roger Norman and the 2011 Baja team is gathering at Norman Motorsports in El Cajon, CA for final preparations and training maneuvers before heading across the border to pre-run for the 2011 SCORE Baja 500. This years team will consist of Roger Norman driving the entire 500 miles with Lance Clifford as the co-driver for the first 300 miles and then Tim Nugent will co-driver to the finish line in celebration of his full recovery. “Tim Nugent is the only thing tougher than my BFGoodrich Tires in Baja! He is the motorcycle rider hit at last years Baja 500, who over the last 11 months has successfully recovered from 23 broken bones,” said Roger Norman. “When Tim told me he still wanted to conquer the Baja 500 I asked him to be a part of our team. Not only will he conquer it, but he will be in the truck with me at the finish line to celebrate a win and his full recovery!”

A year after one of the most horrific moments in Roger Norman’s racing career, the anniversary couldn’t be brighter. “Roger is a great person. Throughout the whole ordeal at the hospital he would come to visit,” said Tim Nugent. “We are taking something tragic and making something better out of it. We’re both healing. It’s a celebration, it’s not a closure, it’s another door opening.”

During the 2010 Baja 500 race, first time Baja competitor, Sportsman motorcycle rider Tim Nugent from Georgia, continued to race on course instead of pulling off and waiting for dust to clear after being passed by #35 Robbie Pierce’s trophy truck and didn’t realize that the #8 Roger Norman trophy truck was in the hunt to pass Pierce. The motorcycle was grazed by the right front tire of Normans truck in the blinding dust. As soon as the incident occurred, Norman stopped the truck, called for immediate assistance and got out to assist the down rider. “The accident with the Sportsman motorcycle rider in the dust has shook me to the core. I have been devastated and demoralized about off-road racing since Saturday’s race,” commented Roger Norman in an email to his fellow Trophy Truck competitors immediately after the incident. “We have all had our close calls and I can tell you that until you run someone over in the dust of another trophy truck at over 100 mph you will not understand the devastating feeling that is created even if they come out with non life threatening injuries.”

In the past year, Roger Norman has made a significant impact on the Off Road Racing Community educating and demanding better safety measures to be instilled into racing environments. Best in the Desert Series has mandated red flashing lights on the helmet of motorcycle and ATV Riders, SCORE has widened the start times between the two classes, and all series are more aware of their responsibility to help keep racers safe and is encouraging training programs for sportsman race classes.

Meanwhile, Tim Nugent was successfully completing his physical therapy and pushing himself with every personal trainer appointment. “It has showed me what I can do. The Doctors had to stop telling me ‘what I wasn’t going to be able to do’ and instead change to telling me ‘what I couldn’t do’ because they knew that I was going to try everything!” said Tim Nugent. “I think something that Roger and I have in common is if we are told we can’t do it, we try even harder to be successful at it!”

“I think the hardest part is going to be getting in and out of the truck having to wear my brace,” said Nugent. Turning to this weeks preparation for the upcoming 2011 Baja 500, the Norman Motorsports team will be timing tire changes, belt changes and getting in and out of the truck. “It is almost impossible to do as great of a job as what Lance does as a co-driver,” said Roger Norman. “I think with some practice and training we can get Tim up to speed to help for the 140 or so miles that he will be in the truck.”

The 3 person team will head to Baja to pre-run later this week through next week. They will be available at Contingency in Ensenada, Baja on Friday June 3rd and will start 17th on Saturday June 4th in the #8 Crystal Bay Casino Trophy Truck.

No matter what the finishing time or place, it is a guarantee that you will see this team up on top of the Crystal Bay Casino #8 Trophy Truck celebrating Tim Nugent’s full recovery!

Pre-race Baja 500 2011 information here

Baja 500 Race Special here

Content credits: Norman Motorsports

Roger Norman didn’t have the finish that he had hoped for in the Mexicana Logistics 300 last weekend. Overheating problems have consistently plagued the single seat Trophy Truck since Norman bought it, and most recently during the NORRA 1000 those issues caused the team longer finishing times. The Norman Motorsports team has continually chased options and it looked like the Ensenada Motorsports team had succeeded at finding the problems when the truck tested perfect last Thursday. Unfortunately, race day was a different story when the truck rapidly overheated and they only made it to RM12 before choosing to not take additional risks destroying the engine further.
The team, which mostly consisted of local Mexican racers, tested the truck on Thursday and it was absolutely perfect and had never been better. “After having to drive by the oil temp gauge in the NORRA Race in a cool April, I wanted to make sure that in the October 110 degree heat that we wouldn’t have the same problem,” remembers Norman. “After testing, I felt confident that we would have an excellent race.”
Saturday morning, race day, something changed. No one knows what happened. But it was overheating with no fix in sight. “I buckled in and took the truck down and back to warm up the engine when I saw the water temp gauge spike to 250 degrees. I shut down the truck and radioed to the crew for assistance. They tried to burp the radiator, and they thought they got the air bubble out, but we could never get the gauge to show cooler,” explains Norman. “By this time, I was late to the starting line. We decided that with only 12 miles to the first pit, that we should at least start the race and limp to the pit to try and fix it there and it just may pass the air pocket on its own.”

Norman took the green flag going the slowest that he has ever gone in a truck, and limped it along hoping to clear the problem. The gauge fluctuated from 215-250 degrees as Norman attempted to go as slow as he could without getting stuck in silt beds and sand wash’s. After only 12 miles, they called the race. “The truck was perfect. Not sure what happened, if it was a head gasket that went bad or what caused the air bubble, but it made for a very short race,” said Norman.

credits: Roger Norman Press release

Roger Norman started 26th and finished 2nd, third overall, in the Crystal Bay Casino #8 Trick Truck class with Armin Schwartz joining the team for the 2010 Best In The Desert Vegas to Reno race. After a bad qualifying run put them into the 26th spot to start, they overcame about 11 minutes of downtime working on the truck and still climbed up into 2nd out of 48 Class 1400 Trick Trucks registered for Friday August 20, 2010 race.

“We had a great race and everything went really well overall! I am glad that Armin was able to join us for his first experience in a trophy truck. It is tough because it is completely different to drive than a Class 1 car, but he did a great job!” said Norman.

Armin Schwartz, a World Rally driver from Germany, took the drivers seat at Race Mile 308 with his navigator and crew chief Bryan Lytle as his co-driver. “I have been looking for quite some time to drive in a trophy truck, and am glad to be in a good truck with a great team,” said Armin Schwartz. “For me it was unbelievable what you can do with a truck. It fly’s very well, especially when you have unknown obstacles,” laughs Schwartz. “It was very exciting because we tried to increase the speed mile, by mile, and not have any stupid mistakes. It paid off as we only had one flat.”

The Norman Motorsports team had great pit stops all day long, even the drivers change was only a minute and a half. “I haven’t raced in a couple of months, and it took me about an hour to get into the groove and start clicking again. I will say I felt much safer driving in the dust knowing the motorcycles and ATV’s had lights, and we successfully used our Pass Alert system a couple of times,” said Norman who was a leader in the recent safety movement.

As a reminder, Norman Motorsports in El Cajon, CA will be hosting a fundraiser to benefit FAST-Aid, Cruz Roja and the Emergency Services of Erendira this Saturday August 28, 2010, doors open at 2pm. Become a Facebook friend of Roger Norman or Curtis Guise and RSVP to the event to attend this very special benefit event. Fans, Sponsors, and Friends are welcome, but must RSVP via Facebook.

Roger Norman teamed with Speed Technologies John Harrah to race a Class 1 car in the Xtreme Outlaws 250 race last weekend in Reno, NV. Norman turned the fastest lap times, and completed the final 65 mile loop of the race in 1 hour 27 minutes and 32 seconds. The Harrah/Norman team finished a close second with only 1 minute 34 seconds separating them from first.
The Xtreme Outlaw 250 was a race that was built with the efforts of the Gilman/Norman families, Grand Marshall Rod Hall, sanctioned by VORRA and a part of the Grand Sierra Resort Xtreme Outlaw race weekend. The 65 mile, 4 lap course took place on the “Tahoe Reno Industrial Center” property that is owned by the Gilman and Norman families, which prompted Norman to want to race even more. “With the Baja 500 only being 2 weeks before and not knowing if the truck would be able to successfully compete, I teamed up with John Harrah in his Class 1 car so I could race,” comments Norman. “It was a great experience for me, John is a good driver and the pit crews were great at getting us back out to racing. I am really glad that I had this opportunity to race on my own land.”
John Harrah and daughter Cody started the race and got 3 flat tires on the 1st lap. “They only had one spare on the race vehicle so they changed it on course, and then limped to check point 2 where Jake and I changed the other two tires. We only had one 37″ and borrowed a 35″ tire to get them back on the road,” remembers Norman. After Harrah completed two laps, they did a quick driver and co-driver change where Roger Norman and co-driver Jake Velasco jumped in. They took on the challenge of being over 17 minutes behind the leader and 7 minutes behind 2nd place. It had been a while since Norman had been in a Class 1 car, and it took some time to overcome the cars fancy shifting system, but managed to quickly figure out the transmission and ran the fastest lap times of the day on the final laps. With the leader having problems with traffic and dust, Norman closed time on the now first place car, but couldn’t make up the 1:34 final time difference, and claimed the 2nd place prize of $3,000.
“I’m very excited this race was as successful as it was, and am looking forward to many more races on this property,” said Norman. “It was nice being able to bring this quality of a race into our hometown of Reno.” There are already plans in motion to cut more track and access roads to make larger races possible.