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Contact Ralph Sanders
Contact Ralph Sanders
Pre-pickup truck racing
ROGERS RACING was established at the end of 2004 when the team purchased a second hand rolling shell from Andy Steward.
The team was set up by the brother partnership of Lee and Dean Rogers. The brothers (who were both born in Exeter), first started their involvement with short circuit when they used to go with their parents to the local Wednesday night meeting at Newton Abbot.
Lee first got involved in a competitive meeting as a junior in the banger class at the age of 14. Lee went on to win several point championship both at junior and senior level at the grass events until 1993 when he was offered the loan of a hot rod by ex-National Hot Rod star, Ralph Sanders.
Lee stuck with the class and started to build his own cars and engines (racing domestically with both Autospeed and Mendips), which resulted in numerous points and county championship wins. At the end of 2003, Lee decided that he wanted to race more nationally and that the natural progression into National Hot Rods was out of his budget. After much consideration about which formula to race, Lee opted for the Stock Rod formula which still gave him the opportunity to race domestically at his local tracks with Autospeed as well as nationally at the top events which included the National Championship at Hednesford and the World Final at Ballymena, Ireland. Lee adapted well to the new formula which resulted in several wins and an overall 2nd place in the Autospeed point’s championship.
Meanwhile, back in the summer of 2004, Dean suggested to Lee that they should take a look at running a Pickup Truck team for the next season. This followed a visit to Rockingham back in October 2003 on the way home from Dean competing in the 2 litre Saloon Stock ‘European Championship’ at Mildenhall the night before. The suggestion was met with a stern ‘no’, as Lee was concerned about the budget issue and just put the whole idea down as another ‘crazy’ idea by his younger brother! The ‘no’ was actually understood as ‘a maybe’ by the ever optimistic Dean and with persistent and further investigation resulted in the brothers taking a look at the Pickups when they raced at Thruxton. At the meeting, Dean and Lee spoke to the Series Director, Sonny Howard who put them in touch with Andy Steward who was selling his car to concentrate on his business. Contact was made with Andy and the brothers went and viewed the car and paid the deposit. The journey on the way home was subdued, as Lee was unable to speak for a couple hours as he couldn’t believe that he had been persuaded by Dean to purchase the car! The car was collected and brought back to their Exeter base a month later (at this stage Lee was again talking to Dean!).
The team visited Rockingham at the last meeting of 2004 and brought along several friends and team members who had not seen the Pickup’s race before. The pickup’s put on a fantastic show which ended with the championship being decided on the last corner of the final race with the whole grandstand on their feet!