Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League Celebrates Crandon International Raceway’s Big 50 with World Championship Off Road Races

There are certain spectacles of sport that will be forever linked to a specific location. A place where we know them best. The Red Sox will always be thought of in Fenway. Knicks’ teams of yore are best remembered bursting from the tunnel in Madison Square Garden. The Intimidator at Daytona, taking the checkered flag in a blur of black and red. And for some of the finest memories of the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League, one need not look any further than the iconic Crandon International Raceway for some of the best moments in the history of the series.

Just don’t expect those highlights to end anytime soon.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Crandon International Raceway, located just 100 miles northwest of Green Bay, Wisconsin. And to celebrate its golden year, the teams from Crandon and Lucas Oil will be pulling out all the stops this Labor Day Weekend, presenting the Polaris RZR Crandon World Championship Off-Road Races from August 29th through September 1st.

Crandon International Raceway, the Mecca of short course racing in the entire Midwestern United States, is always a party. With over 2,600 campsites on a sprawling 400-acre facility, the place becomes a city unto itself on big race weekends. It boasts racing in practically every short course discipline, from Pro Stock SxS and Pro Buggy all the way up to Pro 2 and Pro 4 Trucks, and now even including the burgeoning Ultra4 crowd.

Big? Who are we kidding? This one’s HUGE. Like, we’re talking about a party party. Hell, Kid Rock is even showing up to perform this year. If you’re within a thousand miles or so, trust us, this isn’t one you’re gonna want to skip out on.

“I’ve been going to Crandon for 15 years,” says Jeremy Meyer, the current Race Director for the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course Racing League. “It’s a family tradition for us, and I think that’s what it is for a lot of people. You know that Crandon is like clock work: it’s going to happen, it’s going to be big, and it’s going to be great racing. I mean, it’s ‘The Big House.’”

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

It would be easy for newcomers to the sport to assume that short course racing is a product of the West Coast. And, true, the growth and success it has seen in that part of the country are undeniable. But, all the OGs know: this whole thing really got rolling in the nation’s breadbasket.

Crandon has been the most dependable place in middle America for the biggest races of its kind, long before Forrest Lucas and the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course Racing League were involved. Since all the way back in 1969, to be exact, crowds have been flocking to “The Big House”, and it has hosted the largest crowds to ever watch a short-course off-road race.

And this is where the beauty of the Lucas Oil team comes into play.

Rather than pit these two movements as adversaries—that is, the timeless Midwesterners versus the plucky upstarts from Cali—the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series puts them side by side. A rising tide lifts all boats, eh? Or, in this case, perhaps it lifts all trucks, buggies, and side by sides?

Regardless, the two distinct-yet-oh-so-similar cultures have spent plenty of time apart. Even until just a decade ago, Championship Off Road Racing (CORR) events focused on the newer West Coast scene, while the World Series of Off Road Racing hunkered down in the heartland. When both eventually folded, The Off Road Championship (TORC) emerged in the Midwest, and Forrest Lucas paired with some former CORR staffers to form the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series (LOORS). Finally (and thankfully, for fans), after some time at odds and a deep division of the fan base along geographic lines, LOORS absorbed the struggling TORC, and the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League was born, under the same flag as LOORS out west.

The Berlin Wall of the short course world had finally come down.

No place is this series-merger more gloriously evident, than at a major event like the Labor Day Extravaganza planned for Crandon International Raceway.

All the tradition that 50 years of kickin’ up Wisconsin mud can bring, meeting up with all the talent from the still-growing LOORS circuit. (In fact, Meyer expects the very best of LOORS to be competing this year, with big names like Rob MacCachren, Brian Menzies, RJ Anderson, and Adrian Cenni on the impressive list).

When the Crandon World Championship Off-Road Races get started in just a few short days, the teams from the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League and Crandon International Raceway expect to see one of the largest crowds ever assembled at the historic track, with 60,000 enthusiasts of all ages expected to attend. So, this year they’re pulling out all the stops.

The Ultra4 folks will be competing. Polaris, the primary sponsor of the World Championships, will be giving fans a unique Polaris test drive experience. It will also be giving away a pair of RZRs to the winners of the Pro 2 and Pro 4 classes. Plus, along with the largest cash prizes to date, winners in each Pro Class (which includes two Pro side-by-side classes this year, a first) will receive the highly-coveted, Olympic-style gold, silver, and bronze metals. And, of course, to close out Friday’s festivities, the Bawitabadass himself, Kid Rock, will have the place rocking in a way it never has.

“They’ve got a LOT of tickets sold—it’s something new,” Meyer explains. “Having a guy like Kid Rock come out there, that’s exposing so many more people to a venue that they might not have ever been to. It’s always been popular with local, regional guys, but never in the scope of something like this.”

No Signs of Slowing Down

And still, RZR giveaways and aging rap-rockers notwithstanding, the success of the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League continues to grow. Attendance and race enrollment numbers keep climbing. And Meyer has an idea about that, too. He doesn’t think it’s the celebrities or the top-notch, out-of-town drivers as much as he thinks it’s for another reason entirely: the thousands upon thousands of everyday Americans who simply LOVE this sport.

“The numbers overall this year for off-road short course in the Midwest have been great,” he says. “Part of that is due to the influx of UTVs, but a lot of the Sportsmen classes have really grown this year. There’s consistency right now. There’s some good racing. Maybe it’s that the economy is doing better, but guys are finding trucks and getting out there and racing again.”

The Sportsmen classes. Not the full-time pros. Not the big name drivers. The brand needs its stars too, of course. But the base of this phenomenon is built with regular people, working regular jobs, racing, and watching racing simply because it’s what they are passionate about. And if you want to meet up with a few of those folks this weekend, Crandon International Raceway might be a good place to start. But get there early if you’re planning on meeting all sixty thousand of ‘em.