After forty-eight years and a plethora of victories ranging from the Baja 1000 to the Mint 400, “Lightning” Larry Ragland is calling it a career.
He announced his retirement from driving shortly after securing the NORRA Mexican 1000‘s Historic Truck victory, driving the “Arnold” 1995 Trophy Truck with which he won the Baja 1000 four times; his son Chad also raced Arnold during the 2000s. With Preston Schmid as co-driver, Ragland took both the class and overall lead on the first day, and although he quickly lost the former to modern Evolution vehicles like eventual winner Steve Menzies, he reinforced the latter following rival Mark Post‘s retirement. Despite losing the V-drive early in the penultimate day, he beat Pedro Perezpliego by over four and a half hours for the class win. His final time of 20:47:08 ranked twenty-second among all Pro Cars.
“I got it started every once in a while and fired it up and drive around the neighborhood, then parked it again. I wanted to do one more race with it, and I wanted to do it on my eightieth birthday, which was last year. Now it’s 81,” said Ragland during NORRA’s awards banquet. “We did a complete prep. Preston here got all the prep on it, got it ready, and then navigated with me down here this week. We’ve never been together doing it. Arnold was absolutely perfect other than the V-drive and myself getting a few flags, but I love the truck. It really made all of my memories down here. The locals down here come up all the time for years, they say, ‘When are you going to bring Arnold back to Baja?’ I always told them it will come, I just don’t know when.
“But anyway, it’s happened. We both have had our last race, that’s it. It was a great, great thing to do. I’ll take it back home and I will restore it back the way it was and then just keep it. I had a great time.
“My goal originally was to come down here and make a good showing with it and show them what a thirty-year old truck was really like in those days and why we could accomplish what we did. I was blown away. First day, we won the day, and I thought, ‘Mission accomplished.’ I said, ‘We can go put it on the trailer and go home. We don’t need to carry on.’ That was our day in the sun and we enjoyed it, and I had a great time, and Arnold will be around for a long time.
Ragland began his career in 1976 on a bike before switching to four wheels, partnering up with Jim Halford in a Class 1 at the 1980 Baja 500. They won the following year’s Parker 400 in just their third start together, then built upon it by claiming the San Felipe 250 and Baja 500 in consecutive years. He formed his own team in 1983 and enjoyed success out of the gate again with back-to-back SCORE International Class 1 championships. His success continued through the decade with victories at the Mint 400 in 1986 and 1988, the 1988 SCORE Class 7 title, and race wins like the Frontier 500 and repeating at Parker.
As trucks began to eclipse buggies as the preeminent category in the 1990s, Ragland easily made the transition accordingly in Class 8. He won the Baja 1000 for the first time in 1991 en route to the class title, followed by another Mint and repeating the SCORE championship. The late Jon Nelson built “Arnold” for Ragland in 1995, with which he won the Baja 1000 three years in a row followed by a fourth in 1999. Ragland, Rob MacCachren, and Luke McMillin are the only drivers in history with three straight Baja 1000 wins.
In 2014, he began entering NORRA events, which have lower stakes and are more focused on competitor enjoyment. Ragland was the grand marshal for the 2023 Mexican 1000.
“I’ve gotten away with a lot of things,” Ragland continued. “Every day we go out, my biggest fear coming down here is I’m going to hurt my co-rider, I worry about that, I worry about hurting myself, and then most of all I worry about hitting a local. I’ve gotten away with it, had some extremely close calls over the years, and I just think it’s time I’ve had my day in the sun. I’ve enjoyed it, but I can’t do it forever. I thought we’d go out together.
“I’ve enjoyed it. I love coming down here. I love the locals. I love all the people and I love the fans that I have and all the friends that I’ve made. My best friends are all out there, that’s why I keep doing it. It’s not because I don’t really enjoy driving—it’s not much anymore and it’s too doggone rough—but I enjoy the event, I have to do the driving to be able to be there with everybody else.”
His portfolio also extends beyond the desert, winning the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in 2000 and even dabbling in pavement racing when he did a one-off in Nelson’s Spec Truck Series at Mesa Marin in 1997. He was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2016.
