Until age 52, Ron Rigdon covered long distances as a freight driver. After several decades on the road, he decided he’d had enough and needed a change. The life of a trucker is not an easy one. However, that didn’t mean he wanted to slow down much.
Rigdon moved into this new chapter with a younger man’s enthusiasm and curiosity, and with real determination went after two new pursuits: running his own used car dealership and learning to be a race car driver. A tall order for anyone, let alone a man in his 50s, but Rigdon, an army veteran, is made of tougher stuff.
He took his Scirocco to the NASCAR Factory Four Series and Legend Car to the INEX series “The guys, good ol’ boys running Pintos and Mustangs, were not very happy with the Scirocco I was running. They’d gotten tired of me spanking their asses every weekend.”
In eight years of competition, Rigdon was crowned champion twice, but the success came to a close after an altercation with another Legends racer at Lanier Raceway. “They ran the Pro and the Masters Legends Cars together back then,” he began.
“Lanier is where a lot of the boys from Charlotte come down to run because it’s a little smaller than the Bull Ring. I got in a pissing match with Austin Dillon – he kept hitting me and hitting me.”
Rigdon still managed to out-qualify him, and the race went as one would imagine. The two kept trying to turn one another around until Rigdon used Dillon as a brake. “I wrecked him because I was mad — not a feeling I like. That’s when I decided it’d be a good time to try road course racing.”
Rigdon left the asphalt circle tracks and tried his Legends car first with Sports Car Club of America, having already had a pro license with them, but hated the environment there.
“Second event I went to, I asked a couple of guys to help me get my car off the trailer. ‘If you need help, you should’ve brought some,’ one said.
It didn’t make any sense – shouldn’t club racing be about camaraderie? Nobody seemed like they were having any fun!” Rigdon protested.
A couple of more courteous competitors suggested he try his luck with NASA, where he found the atmosphere he was after. Soon he had his license and his first entry into the Legends-Lightning group. Because he was doing it all himself, he was happy to see that folks there were not only willing to help, but offered their help without him asking.
That was 2008. With help from his new friends, Rigdon acclimated to road courses quickly and was crowned champion that year as well as the Rookie of the Year. The following year, he was among the first to have a “Move of the Month” written about him. That success continued, winning three years on the trot.
Around that time, he was given a chance to return to trucking. “Man, I’m done with trucks,” he protested after his friend offered him a gig. As reluctant as he was, truth was he needed the extra funds for his growing race commitments, and since this gig would involve moving a bunch of Ferraris to Circuit of The Americas for a race, he figured he might make a weekend out of it.
That gig changed everything. After unloading, the local Ferrari club invited him to stay and watch his freight used as it was meant to be used.
Witnessing the Ferrari Challenge cars in action reignited something in him, and after a brief conversation with he had wrangled himself a new part-time position as hauler for Ferrari of Houston.
The man had been gut-hooked like a catfish. Eager for new adventures, he eventually signed as a truck driver with a string of ALMS and IMSA teams: Robertson Racing, The Heart of Racing, Era Motorsports, and lastly with Team TGM.
“Driving for the pros was demanding. When TGM wasn’t racing, they were testing,” Rigdon added.
His dedication to the sport in all forms, as impressive as it was, was not the single pursuit that motivated him most. Racing is by definition a selfish sport, though there are some humanitarians among us who use racing as a vehicle for altruism.
“Our race team, Circle Heart Racing, always wanted to make my racing stand for something positive, and so we decided to raise money for children in need.
Rigdon had been on the board of trustees with Speedway Children’s Charities for a few years at this point. He’d figured out the finer points of the grant review process: how to assess a charity’s financials and ascertain their administrative costs weren’t excessive. “I wanted to make sure the money they take really goes to help those less fortunate,” he said.
In the spring of 2008, he took his fundraising know-how and mixed it with his passion for racing.
The initial request was minimal. “We started by asking for a $25 donation from drivers to place an Speedway Children’s Charities sticker on their race cars. We ended up raising $2,500 that year.”
His good deeds did not go unnoticed. That winter, Jim and Julie Pantas had asked Rigdon to help at Santa’s Toy Run and use it as a platform to help those in need. In their first year together, Rigdon and the Pantases raised $2,500 and provided toys for more than 100 children.
“We decided to make it a charitable event helping provide toys for essentially homeless children, kids at group foster homes, and in domestic violence shelters with their parent. A lot of these kids wouldn’t have toys if it wasn’t for Santa’s Toy Run.”
“It probably costs me $1,000 to print all the materials and host the website, plus the hours and hours of work, but the way I look at it, I turn $1,000 into $15,000 for those who need it most – the hidden homeless, I call ‘em.”
Rigdon found other ways to give back. In 2012, he became an instructor and a competition school instructor with NASA Southeast.
The following year, Rigdon decided to join the Honda Challenge series with his then-daily driver, an AP1 S2000. “I’d been hanging out with the Honda Challenge guys and wanted to join them. Those guys just raced so clean.”
He’d made friends outside the NASA world who could help him in his racing. “At one point at my dealership, all I sold were Hondas and I sent my customers to Southern Appalachia Auto to repair the stuff I couldn’t do.”
That partnership led to a proposal. Jason Flickinger, co-owner of Southern Appalachian Auto, offered to turn Rigdon’s stock street car into an H1 front-runner and wouldn’t charge him a dime for the labor. In fact, he wouldn’t have to spend much at all, since most of the go-fast parts were donated through partnerships he’d formed. “I’d promote their businesses through the website and all the videos I did on my site,” Rigdon explained.
Flickinger joined as crew chief and helped Rigdon get up to speed quickly. “[Flickinger] taught me how to read my MoTeC. At Daytona, I just couldn’t believe where I was – it was all kind of surreal. It was damn fast, too, so I’d lift going through the corners. He barked at me: ‘Don’t lift – it’ll stick!’ Well, I took his word, held it flat, and put it on pole.
“It was a big slipstreaming fight there – hard to break away from them. Where I really made time on them was the Bus Stop. With the big Stoptech brakes, I could run it in till I saw God, then wait two more seconds,” he recalled.
Rigdon brought home the win that afternoon and still holds it as his greatest racing achievement. His speed and consistency won him the H1 titles in 2013 and 2014, prompting him to give back again by becoming the regional series leader.
“I loved that series, man. Everyone drove so clean, and if I had a problem with my car, the guy I’d been running door-to-door with would come over and bust his knuckles to make sure I got back on track,” he reminisced.
Unfortunately, life intervened and he had to part ways with his Honda. “We were struggling with the dealership and I had to generate some cash – I wish I’d never sold it.”
From 2015 onward, Rigdon has been focused on pulling for Parella Motorsports and building Santa’s Toy Run into what it is today.
That event has grown in size and scope in the last 18 years – something Rigdon has been instrumental in. So much of this growth is due to the transparency he’s emphasized. “Donors really like the fact that I’m transparent. I hand their checks directly to the approved charity of their choice when we distribute the toys in December. They know there’s no third party siphoning any of the money.”
Now, Rigdon and wife Michele oversee the collections of donations, thank-you letters, and toys, as well as soliciting for corporate donations, and handling the administrative duties. Santa’s Toy Run now depends on those two for their large-heartedness and their fortitude. Not many are willing to work the grueling hours for the sheer goodness of it. It’s an immense amount of work, and for NASA Southeast to trust them with the task says a great deal about how Rigdon has been received in the community.
“Since I jumped onboard, we’ve provided toys and essentials for more than 7,000 children that would’ve gone without that holiday season. We’ve also raised over $100,000 in donations for the organizations providing care for these homeless children.”
The long-haul driving has paid off and now, at 69, he’s planning to spend his retirement racing with friends he has held onto for the better part of 20 years. “I’ve said it before, but I mean it this time – I’m going to retire from trucking at the end of the year and get me a Honda, a Miata, or a Spec E30 and go back racing with the guys. I miss all of them.”
The camaraderie, sportsmanship, and friendships built over the years are what it’s all about for Rigdon, who doesn’t care where he places – much to his crew chief’s chagrin. “That’s what it’s supposed to be about. That’s what Legends was all about until those [expletive deleted] from Charlotte started coming down.
“I would tell anyone wanting to run road courses not to waste their time or money with these other guys and come to NASA where the good people are, hands down!” he added.
Santa’s Toy Run for 2025 takes place once again at Road Atlanta December 6-7. Participants should bring a new unwrapped toy or gift car valued at $25 or more.
