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Rojas cut his teeth in open-wheel machinery like Champ Car's Atlantic Series before opportunity knocked in Grand-Am. (LAT photo) » More Photos
A line 30 people long forms at the rear of TELMEX Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates's hauler. It's March 3, the morning of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Almost every person in line holds Ganassi Racing's No. 01 Lexus Riley hero card, including a race fan wearing a "guacamole head" hat and two track firefighters on break.
The reason these people waited in line was summarized by a small child as he looked down at his hero card, "Memo Rojas!"
Rojas, a Mexico City native, would compete in the Rolex race with co-driver Scott Pruett, the 2007 Rolex 24 at Daytona winner. Rojas was only one of two hometown heroes competing in the Rolex Series. This might explain why 30 minutes into his autograph signing, the line was still 30-strong.
But Rojas wasn't always a star. His father, a talented Mexican driver, competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but Rojas didn't begin his racing career until the age of 12. Rojas cut his teeth that first year in 1993 in the Mexican National Karting Championship, where he finished third in the standings. The next year, he took the championship with the Herdez Competition team.
"It [was] like going to kindergarten," Rojas said of his go-kart days. "[Kindergarten] is where they teach you to do things you'll do in a bigger scale once you are grown up. And that's exactly what happens in racing. You learn how to draw a race line, you learn about passing, you learn about competition [and] about being wheel to wheel with other guys. That's all the same."
Rojas cut his teeth in open-wheel machinery like Champ Car's Atlantic Series before opportunity knocked in Grand-Am. (LAT photo) » More Photos
Rojas would find this out at the age of 15, when he made the jump to cars in 1996. He took two pole positions and one win in his first year of the Mexican Formula 2 Championship. This was quite a feat, as the car used in Mexican F2 at that time was an old Formula Atlantic – not exactly a small increase in performance over a kart.
The next year, Rojas took the rookie of the year title in the Skip Barber Formula Dodge Championship in the United
These statistics helped to land him a two-year ride in the U.S. Formula Ford 2000 Series for Roquin Motorsports. Rojas scored sixth place finishes in both 2000 and 2001, and helped attract a sponsor wanting to continue to support him in the U.S.
TELMEX selected Rojas to join its driver development program and put him in the Barber Dodge Pro Series for the '02 season. He scored fifth in points that year and second in the following by taking two wins and two poles.
In '04, Rojas moved up in prestige and over in geography to compete in the Formula Renault V6 Eurocup. He broke a hiatus for his country by becoming the first Mexican in 20 years to compete in a top-level European championship.
"I think I finished like 11th in the championship," Rojas said of the Eurocup. "European racing was new to me, so I didn't know the tracks, [and] I didn't know all the European racing which is very different from the American racing culture…. [So] we were looking for a second year to go fight for the championship, but we couldn't do it because of a lack of sponsorship."
That dilemma would force Rojas' career to stagnate over the next two years.
"It was really tough. It was not because I wanted to; it was because I couldn't keep going," he said.
With no funding and no longer a part of the TELMEX driver development program, Rojas had few options. "When you get out of the picture for two years, people forget quickly," he said.
He waited for those two years to pass, kept fit by driving his go-kart and knocked on every team-owner's door looking for a ride. One of those doors opened toward the end of '06, and out stepped Chip Ganassi.
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