Renegade Race Fuels started in 1975 when Ronnie Baptiste started Renegade Racing. From the streets to the now-shuttered Riverside Raceway Park in Nashville, Tenn., his grandson Toby Baptiste grew up with racing in his veins. Going to three tracks every weekend, Toby found passion for racing. Growing older, Toby walked in his father’s footsteps by taking the wheel of a dragster at only 15 years of age.
By 18 years of age, Toby found himself in a fierce points chase at a local track. Mysteriously, he experienced a run of first-round losses in four straight events. It was later determined a faulty drum of fuel had contaminated parts of their injection unit. After being denied a replacement drum of fuel, Toby began to search for, and found, another fuel supplier. The new supplier had similar issues and Toby’s friends collectively advocated for him to start supplying fuel for an entire group of racers. With customers lying in wait, he started a small fuel business called Renegade Racing Products in his dad’s one-car garage. Peddling drums for $5.00 above cost just to gain customers, he slowly laid the groundwork for a successful, long-term business.
“The extra five dollars made good eating money while in college, back then,” recalled Toby.
In 1998 Toby gained a direct distributorship for Torco Race Fuels which covered Kentucky and part of Tennessee. By the end of 1999, Renegade Division (formerly Renegade Racing Products) became one of Torco’s largest customers.
At the beginning of the 2000 season, a new opportunity presented itself and Renegade Division joined forces with Koch Refinery to be a master distributor for the entire southeast. Out of the entire distributorship network, the Renegade Division was the top volume seller of the product in just two years. By 2002, Toby struck a partnership with his Valor, LLC Terminals (formerly CC. Hildreth Inc.) in Bowling Green, Ken., to blend his own custom fuels and offer private label products for sale.
Finally, starting in 2004, Toby fully committed to and marketed his own brand of race fuels including exotic fuels and compatible lubricants under the Renegade Pro-Series line. With nationwide distribution and new markets added almost daily, Renegade Racing Fuels & Lubricants is becoming racing’s best kept secret.
Stop by and visit Renegade Racing Fuels at the 2015 Charlotte Racers Expo. Whether you race on gasoline, methanol, oxygenated crate fuel or something else, Renegade should definitely be on your shopping list this January.