Wisconsin and California can be worlds away at
times. Blaze orange deer hunters vs. black wetsuit surfers. But the sport of
short course off-road racing, born on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, had a way of
blurring those lines of difference and brought the off-road guys from the east and
Midwest to the same unique playing field as the guys from California. In the mid-2000s Rick
Huseman moved up to the PRO 4 trucks, purchasing friend Johnny Greaves’
‘slightly used’ PRO 4 Toyota Tundra. Greaves was instrumental in delivering
Huseman to Toyota, a sponsorship that would carry on through numerous
championships for the Huseman Racing Team.
“I found
out on Sunday night when I was packing to head back to Wisconsin,” said Johnny
Greaves, choking back the tears, on when he first got word of the plane crash
that not only took Monster Energy off-roader Rick Huseman, but also Huseman’s
brother Jeff and friend Daniel Hicks. “I decided to drive instead to California
and see if there was anything I could do to help Rick’s family. During that
drive it really started to sink in … many, many miles of thinking – and
crying.”
Greaves’ heartfelt
emotions were shared across the closely-knit off-road racing community. Rick
Huseman was one of those guys that you’d like to have stop if you were stranded
on the side of the road. ‘Nah, you don’t gotta call a tow truck … I got my
tools with me.’ Huseman would help out until his knuckles were bleeding, which
included his fellow competitors on the alphabet soup of off-road racing series’
over the years.
In 2008 Monster Energy would again approach
Greaves with interest in Huseman as Monster was looking to add another PRO 4
driver to its ranks, which at the time, only included Greaves.
“For
two seasons we drove identical Toyota/Monster Energy trucks,” added Greaves.
“Couldn’t tell us apart.”
So watch
for Greaves from here on out and you’ll no doubt see a lot of Rick Huseman –
still.
