It's the knowing nod of off-road racing - the
kind of deal that those in the know, know. To Cheese Heads (Green
Bay Packer fans) and those of the like, it's Bratwurst and beer,
sweltering hot days, humidity, sunshine and rain.
And then, there's the racing - flat-out,
punch-the-throttle-through-the-floor, short-course off-road racing.
Here, 800 horsepower trucks sling around corners at 100-plus miles
an hour. BF Goodrich, Kumho and Goodyear tires twist into flat-out
runs through the brush, spitting fire from red-hot exhausts. The
suspensions suffer the wrath too, cycling through the ambition and
competitiveness of the driver, the lion's roar of the crowd, and
gut-wrenching jumps, which dig down deep into the very essence of
suspense.
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Pro-Lite drivers Jimmie Crowder and Mark
Krueger |
This is Crandon, a blip on the map of America, population
3,500 on any given weekend in the woods. But, that's not the case
with the first weekend of September. Some 60,000-plus dirt-hungry
race fans will descend upon the small northern Wisconsin town to
see the one thing that brought them there, Round 13 and 14 of the
Championship Off Road Racing (CORR) Exxon Superflo series at Crandon
International Off-Road Raceway, a 1.75-mile dirt-hewn racecourse
that will rumble.
It began some 32 years
ago on some lonely pick-up truck carved back roads. For Crandon,
They started off racing clapped-out jalopies, fusing the wisdom of
shade-tree enthusiasm into a dream that would one day become what
it is today, where full blown half-million dollar rigs blast
through turns and flying over jumps for big bucks.
Off-Road.com in alliance with Ford
Trucks, Rancho
Suspension and Borg-Warner will be there, covering the spirit, culture
and the epic off-road race that the CORR Crandon race and the Borg
Warner World Championship Off-Road Shootout have become.
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Pro-2 action shot. |
We'll greet you each morning, noon and night with
real-time updates of all the weekend's action. We'll provide you
and our two million-plus readers with race-by-race results,
commentary and photos of all pro truck divisions. When it's all
said and done, we'll have more than a thousand digital images,
cut-rate commentary and maybe even a little video of all pro and
sportsman classes - more than any other publication in the world
has ever done for their readers or the sport.
And we'll have it right here on the new Ford Racing pages of
Off-Road.com. Join us in this epic and history-making coverage,
where the culture of off-road racing will come alive before your
very eyes.
Beginning Friday, August 31, at
2 p.m., we'll bring you up to speed with who's hot at the Trail
Master Time Trials (qualifying) for entry into Sunday's 7th Annual
BorgWarner Shootout, where $100,000 goes up for grabs among the
fiercest of off-road competition in the world. Pro 2 (2-wheel
drive) and Pro 4 (4-wheel drive) trucks will go head-to-head in a
battle royale for the big bucks and glory of taking home the
BorgWarner Cup, the sterling silver and 18 karat gold trophy that
tops the charts in off-road racing honor.
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The $100,000 18K and sterling silver
Borg-Warner Automotive off-road World Championship Cup. Drivers who
win the prize are forever immortalized on the base of the trophy
with the name and truck logo. |
We'll then venture into the crowd and into the
campsites to show you what it's like to live and breathe off-road
racing. From there, we'll take you into the "Xtreme Thunderfest,"
where monster trucks, figure eight stock car racing, motorcycles
and fireworks pleasure the edge-of-the-seat senses. Look for an
upload of the action to be on your computer screen by 10:30pm
Eastern Standard Time.
We'll wake up before
the rooster crows and do it all again for two full days of off-road
racing action. On Saturday and Sunday we'll meet the people in the
pits, the drivers, the mechanics - and even the Good Ol' Boys, the
guys who put their grass roots onto the race track, in a
race-what-you-brung crash-fest.
Be sure to
join us for this hallmark event, when we'll set the pace of great
things to come in off-road racing.
ORC
Staff |