Story by DinaRella / Photos by Tomas Velazquez, Erick Bryner/Fast Loud Photography & Dustin Fedak SCORE Intl/Dirt Chronicles
Desert dust barely settled from racing the Baja 500 before respected off-roader Roger Norman and his fellow driver, veteran offshore racer Nigel Hook, were back at it. For round two, roles reversed and Hook was coaching Norman. The route also took a sharp turn… into the snarly Gulf Stream to West End, Grand Bahama and back in Hook’s twin Mercury Racing 1350/1550 powered Mystic.
Reimaged to #47 TRUMP 2024 for the Gateway Marathon, the 52-foot catamaran caught everyone’s attention, including the president who was sent photos showing how he had made it to the “offshore campaign trail.”
The name Roger Norman might not ring familiar in offshore (not yet anyway) but the off-road world knows him well from raising trophies, reviving HDRA and acquiring SCORE International – the Southern California Off-Road Enthusiasts racing series. Far from his first time forging through feisty saltwater chop, boat racing runs deep within his family. American Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Fran Muncey, whose team won seven straight Gold Cups, is his mother; and undefeated, unlimited hydroplane racing legend Bill Muncey was his late stepfather.
Swapping steering wheels from his Polaris RZR Pro R to a speedboat was inevitable. Hook fills in the blanks behind the new teammates tackling two tracks in one week, “Roger and I became friends through pro-racer Rick Bowling in San Diego, but it was in Cape Canaveral while testing his UTV video streaming equipment in my Mystic when I discovered his driving talent. Afterwards, when talk about doing the Ocean Cup race together came up, he said, ‘Okay, but you should do my race, the Baja 500, the week before?’”
Gratitude also goes out to Norman for introducing us to Star Stream, the satellite communications system he uses with SCORE. Owned by George Hammel from the Dirt Life Podcast, the game-changing tech is guaranteed to grow the fan base. For the Gateway Marathon, Star Stream was installed on the Mystic TRUMP 2024 and Outerlimits Patriotic Duty, and in the Universal Air Service helicopters carrying Operator Solutions rescue divers, media, and one cheerful special guest, Fran Muncey.
Crediting Elon Musk for the advancements, having launched thousands of satellites with SpaceX, Norman says, “Reliability is everything. In the middle of nowhere you can’t go down. This tech is on par with production broadcasting. It’s opening up endurance motorsport racing to the world. We even have fans watching from the Vatican.”
Stickered by Ryan Beckley of Kinetic Animation, several factors sparked the mythic red Mystic boarding the Trump train. It started when Fast Loud Photography’s Erick Bryner shared a video with the team from the Las Vegas Mint 400 of off-roader Ryan Arciero’s TRUMP 2024 Trophy Truck that went viral with 21 million views. The derailing of the Constitution with the corrupt administration’s recent sham trial orchestrated by the communistic Third World judicial system further fueled the fire, turning this into a movement to salvage what remains of our Constitutional Republic!
As for the team patronage, given the non-stop lies from the cancerous press, Hook explained it’s in support of how true Americans feel. Two patriots sharing that sentiment are his new race partner and his lovely wife Elise. After seeing the photo below with the two helicopters in front of the boat, Elise’s quote summed it up best: “We just want him to know we have his back!” Being in the 45th President’s company at motorsports events, they can also tell you, as we’ve recently seen at the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 and UFC 302 fight – the man walks through stadium doors to staggering applause and standing ovations, giving us hope that nothing can stop what’s coming in November. Much like last Saturday, June 8th, nothing could stop #47 TRUMP 2024.
The Race
After tireless preparations from Herb Stotler and his dedicated Stotler Competition Marine team including Levi Santana, Charlie Williams and Joey Sexton, the machine was race ready. Discussing conditions pre-race, Hook said, “No matter what it’s like near the coast, five miles across the Florida Strait, commercial tankers are doing 20 knots (23 mph) leaving big wakes in a big body of water. It’s very unpredictable. Doing 140 miles per hour, you must be prepared.”
Commentary from the outstanding live broadcast from Martin Sanborn and Janet Wilson called Hook and Norman “icemen with their eyes on the prize.” The duo was certainly focused on their 128-mile mission. Registering an average speed of 97 miles per hour, their time was 1 hour, 18 minutes and 51 seconds. Post-race Hook added, “Nearing the halfway mark were many white caps and the water was most volatile. We had to be careful not to dig in a sponson. About 10 miles from the ledge it started to flatten out to get that top speed."
Excited to hear Norman’s take, he told us, “I loved every minute of it. I’m bummed we’re not still out there. I’ve done a lot of navigation on land, but in the ocean it’s much different. You have to trust the equipment. You have no reference point to know where you really are or what to look for. Midway, I didn’t believe I was right on the line. Thinking the GPS isn’t moving, it took about 45 seconds, but I shut down and restarted the system so I knew in my own mind we were on course.”
As for being on course, clocking in a mere three minutes short of beating last year’s time means the countdown has already begun to return for a speed-topping repeat performance in 2025! Until then, for another dose of patriotic powerboating, up next we’ll feature the re-rigging story on the evolution of the former Full House 47 GSX Outerlimits poker run boat into an endurance racing multi-record breaker!
Desert dust barely settled from racing the Baja 500 before respected off-roader Roger Norman and his fellow driver, veteran offshore racer Nigel Hook, were back at it. For round two, roles reversed and Hook was coaching Norman. The route also took a sharp turn… into the snarly Gulf Stream to West End, Grand Bahama and back in Hook’s twin Mercury Racing 1350/1550 powered Mystic.
Reimaged to #47 TRUMP 2024 for the Gateway Marathon, the 52-foot catamaran caught everyone’s attention, including the president who was sent photos showing how he had made it to the “offshore campaign trail.”
Roger Norman: From Sand to Salt Water
The name Roger Norman might not ring familiar in offshore (not yet anyway) but the off-road world knows him well from raising trophies, reviving HDRA and acquiring SCORE International – the Southern California Off-Road Enthusiasts racing series. Far from his first time forging through feisty saltwater chop, boat racing runs deep within his family. American Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Fran Muncey, whose team won seven straight Gold Cups, is his mother; and undefeated, unlimited hydroplane racing legend Bill Muncey was his late stepfather.
Swapping steering wheels from his Polaris RZR Pro R to a speedboat was inevitable. Hook fills in the blanks behind the new teammates tackling two tracks in one week, “Roger and I became friends through pro-racer Rick Bowling in San Diego, but it was in Cape Canaveral while testing his UTV video streaming equipment in my Mystic when I discovered his driving talent. Afterwards, when talk about doing the Ocean Cup race together came up, he said, ‘Okay, but you should do my race, the Baja 500, the week before?’”
Gratitude also goes out to Norman for introducing us to Star Stream, the satellite communications system he uses with SCORE. Owned by George Hammel from the Dirt Life Podcast, the game-changing tech is guaranteed to grow the fan base. For the Gateway Marathon, Star Stream was installed on the Mystic TRUMP 2024 and Outerlimits Patriotic Duty, and in the Universal Air Service helicopters carrying Operator Solutions rescue divers, media, and one cheerful special guest, Fran Muncey.
Crediting Elon Musk for the advancements, having launched thousands of satellites with SpaceX, Norman says, “Reliability is everything. In the middle of nowhere you can’t go down. This tech is on par with production broadcasting. It’s opening up endurance motorsport racing to the world. We even have fans watching from the Vatican.”
#47 Mystic TRUMP 2024
Stickered by Ryan Beckley of Kinetic Animation, several factors sparked the mythic red Mystic boarding the Trump train. It started when Fast Loud Photography’s Erick Bryner shared a video with the team from the Las Vegas Mint 400 of off-roader Ryan Arciero’s TRUMP 2024 Trophy Truck that went viral with 21 million views. The derailing of the Constitution with the corrupt administration’s recent sham trial orchestrated by the communistic Third World judicial system further fueled the fire, turning this into a movement to salvage what remains of our Constitutional Republic!
As for the team patronage, given the non-stop lies from the cancerous press, Hook explained it’s in support of how true Americans feel. Two patriots sharing that sentiment are his new race partner and his lovely wife Elise. After seeing the photo below with the two helicopters in front of the boat, Elise’s quote summed it up best: “We just want him to know we have his back!” Being in the 45th President’s company at motorsports events, they can also tell you, as we’ve recently seen at the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 and UFC 302 fight – the man walks through stadium doors to staggering applause and standing ovations, giving us hope that nothing can stop what’s coming in November. Much like last Saturday, June 8th, nothing could stop #47 TRUMP 2024.
The Race
After tireless preparations from Herb Stotler and his dedicated Stotler Competition Marine team including Levi Santana, Charlie Williams and Joey Sexton, the machine was race ready. Discussing conditions pre-race, Hook said, “No matter what it’s like near the coast, five miles across the Florida Strait, commercial tankers are doing 20 knots (23 mph) leaving big wakes in a big body of water. It’s very unpredictable. Doing 140 miles per hour, you must be prepared.”
Commentary from the outstanding live broadcast from Martin Sanborn and Janet Wilson called Hook and Norman “icemen with their eyes on the prize.” The duo was certainly focused on their 128-mile mission. Registering an average speed of 97 miles per hour, their time was 1 hour, 18 minutes and 51 seconds. Post-race Hook added, “Nearing the halfway mark were many white caps and the water was most volatile. We had to be careful not to dig in a sponson. About 10 miles from the ledge it started to flatten out to get that top speed."
Excited to hear Norman’s take, he told us, “I loved every minute of it. I’m bummed we’re not still out there. I’ve done a lot of navigation on land, but in the ocean it’s much different. You have to trust the equipment. You have no reference point to know where you really are or what to look for. Midway, I didn’t believe I was right on the line. Thinking the GPS isn’t moving, it took about 45 seconds, but I shut down and restarted the system so I knew in my own mind we were on course.”
As for being on course, clocking in a mere three minutes short of beating last year’s time means the countdown has already begun to return for a speed-topping repeat performance in 2025! Until then, for another dose of patriotic powerboating, up next we’ll feature the re-rigging story on the evolution of the former Full House 47 GSX Outerlimits poker run boat into an endurance racing multi-record breaker!
