Roger Gustin
Roger got started in drag racing in 1957 when he took his 1949 Chevy to the local race track. That was all it took to set the course for his life. Rogers first efforts in the 1949 Chevy were not very successful, but that changed when he purchased a 1955 Chevy and his brother Phil joined him as the mechanic. The brothers were very successful in the sportsman category for several years, but in 1965 Roger achieved his dream when he moved into the full-time professional racer ranks. One thing that set Roger apart from a lot of the other full-time racers at the time was his belief that to be successful at the sport he had to be a businessman first and a racer second. Roger really worked at polishing his PR skills vary early on by studying public relations, attending media training classes, and attending a commercial acting school in New York to perfect his on-screen presentation for commercials. In 1972 Roger moved into the arena that has propelled him to the position he enjoyed, the jet powered funny cars. As a businessman this made sense because he got paid every time the car ran, and it was not as crowded as the more conventional funny car class. However, it was also considered to be a very dangerous class with very little supervision from the sanctioning bodies. Looking for a way to make his “business” grow, Roger began crusading for stricter regulations from the chassis/body, to licensing the drivers, and for sanctioning by the associations. In 1974, Roger became the first driver to be licensed to race a jet car when NHRA issued such a license. As with many of the other Hall of Fame inductees, Roger proved to be a multidimensional person. In 1992, Roger experienced a near fatal top end crash in his jet car that left him in a recovery mode for over 14 months. During that time Roger accepted an offer from AutoStar Productions, Inc. to become a director for the company and build its profit to profitability as the producers of the Super Chevy Show Series. One of the main reasons Roger was successful with his race car was his ability to secure major sponsorships. In fact, he was among the first in drag racing to obtain sponsorship from such major widely recognized non-automotive companies as Smith Brothers Couch Drops, Lava Soap, and Black & Decker, to name a few. The first ever motorsports sponsorship with Procter & Gamble (Lava Soap) resulted in a high visibility national TV campaign with Roger featured prominently as the spokesperson. Roger brought this same thought process to the AutoStar program and be began securing profitable sponsorships for the events and soon turned them into very profitable events. Over the years, Roger received numerous honors for his contributions to the sport, including induction into the NHRA Hall of Fame, Car Craft Magazines Hi-Riser Club, IHRA’s 1979 Showman of the Year, the National Safety Council’s Spokesperson of the Year in 1985 & 1986, and the Projet Association Hall of Fame, to name just a few
In 1996, Roger went from director of AutoStar productions to owner when he purchased the company. Even after his retirement from the driver seat, the Team Gustin jet car program continued to race on the Project circuit.