Rick Huseman

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.