In 1958, three young men from Hollywood, Don Ratican, Bill Jackson, and Ron Stearns, built a Fiat bodied A/A Coupe and became the racing team of Ratican, Jackson and Stearns.  Don was the motorman, Bill the chassis guy, and Ron became the man behind the wheel.  In 1959 the team built a new chassis, which was completed in February 1960.

   One of the high points in the R-J-S team's career occurred when they ventured to Detroit, Michigan, to the NHRA (now U.S.) Nationals.  The best part of the trip was scoring a tremendous class win over top cars from all over the country.  Another pinnacle in their brief career as racers occurred when they traveled to the 1961 NHRA Nationals in Indianapolis repeating their class win for the second year in a row. This victory topped all of their previous successes which included wins at the World Series of Drag Racing in Cordova, Illinois in 1960 and 61, as well as records set at every track that they raced.  They drove non-stop across the country taking turns driving while the others slept.  They drove Bill’s 1959 El Camino with the racecar in tow, while Ron and Don took turns sleeping behind the seat on the floor (they was very thin then) and one of the others took turns in the passenger seat.

The conclusion of the Ratican-Jackson-Stearns team came in 1961 when the team sold their Fiat to Woody Duke of Pacific Palisades, CA.  Woody ran the car for eight months and then parked the Fiat in his ivy-covered backyard for thirty plus years.

   After they sold the Fiat, Don continued to build race engines, and Bill continued to build state of the art chassis.  Ron and Don borrowed an A/Modified Roadster from Wayne Ferguson who was then serving his country overseas.  They put their own supercharged Oldsmobile engine in it and subsequently won the 1962 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca. with this car.

  Don, Bill and Ron have remained friends and stayed in contact over the years.   They had an itch to reunite the team and relive past victories, so the three decided to attend the Second Annual NHRA Hot Rod Reunion in 1993 in Bakersfield, California.  While eating hot dogs, sipping sodas, and reminiscing with other racers, Ratican, Jackson and Stearns saw Woody Duke a few seats over.  The four men chatted about old times and discovered that Woody still owned the Fiat.  When asked if he would consider selling the car back to them, Duke stated that he still had hopes to restore it and race the car himself.  Woody hired Don Ratican and together they restored the car.  When they were finished, Woody, at the age of eighty-two, raced the car himself a few times, before selling the Fiat back to the retired R-J-S team in the summer of 1995.  Thirty-four years after they sold the Fiat the team of Ratican, Jackson and Stearns rescued it from the Palisades back yard and came out of retirement.

   The newly restored Fiat debuted at the 1996 CHRR with its original owners Don Ratican, Bill Jackson and Ron Stearns.  There, the team raced the car just as they had three decades before.  The racing team of R-J-S was selected as one of the Golden Fifty honorees at the 50th NHRA US Nationals in 2004.  In 2010 they were also honored at the 50th anniversary NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, CA.  Since 1996 the R-J-S Fiat has made its home at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum.  Ron still takes the car out to classic car shows, hot rod reunions and is still asked for his autograph by fans from those past years.  

In 2009, they were pleasantly surprised to see that their car was made into a collectible GMP die cast model.