Here's my take. Off road racing is mere plip on the national radar. Unless your part of the off road culture we are unkown. As Robby Gordon says Off road racing is the best kept secret. Part of this reason is racers are takers. Very few give back. Heck we can't even get a few Stars of the Sport to show to BLM meetings or write letters.
So with considering what I have said we can not compare our desert racing to the other professional Motorsports. In our sport we are called Pro classes, but there is nothing Pro about it. Any one with some disposable income can be a pro and enter any class that there is. Helen Keller could race a TT (if alive) if she had the entry fee $. We don't have any licensing, drug testing or real structure like Usac, NASCAR the IRL.
So now that I have shot down some egos and made you realize that even the TT class is really just another amateur class with wealthy people speding there own money. Why is it some extremely welthly guy who chooses to protect his identity is such a bad thing? His helmet is not hurting or making light of our sport. Our sport did that before R Acer showed up.
Until you are in his shoes you don't know what his life is like. Maybe he has done this very charitable thing before and later was extorted for money, gets flooded with people begging him to give them money? Who knows? He could be a Lotto winner? I can see so many reasons to stay annanomiss. After he takes the helmet off he becomes just like you and me and is free to walk the streets like the average joe.
When Jeesie James was racing on TT. The first year I was asked to help them at Laughlin. Both him and Sandra Bulluck could not go anywhere without people bothering them. I could only imagine how paranoid a guy like R Acer would be in Baja if people knew who he was and his wealth or where the money is coming from.
Also like mentioned he is doing such great things for the children in Baja and in several other places in the world. I thought I read what he is doing in Baja he is or has done in other countries. So he wants to play a super hero and give people hope that there is something good out there and something to believe & look up to. If this guy was just like you and me but wealthy and was giving $500k to the schools and orphanages would his impact be the same? I say no! His character is part of the gift. As he said the mistery gives hope and kids love a super hero.
I say we need more R Acers in our sport. Trust me more people in this sport take vs give, which is a huge problem. You ever wonder why you hear or read about a pissed off rancher in Baja? Yeah we are not always seen as positive in Baja. The government likes it, but the private land owner just trying to make it threw the year might not appreciate what we do to his land, gates and farms. Plus many don't get the compensation they are promised. If you were in his shoes would you want some "rich in his eyes" American racers tearing up his property or country?