The Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, also known as LOORRS, was a short course off-road racing series in the United States and Mexico. Following the bankruptcy of the CORR series in 2008, Lucas Oil founded LOORRS in 2009, featuring racing events in Arizona, California, Nevada, Missouri, as well as Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.[1] In 2020, the series was discontinued due to uncertainty stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
History
There were two large sanctioning bodies in short course off-road racing for 2008: CORR and WSORR. CORR had been sanctioning events on the West Coast and WSORR had sanctioned Midwestern events. CORR closed before the end of the 2008 season and canceled its final two racing weekends. LOORRS took over the sanctioning of most of the West Coast events, and TORC: The Off-Road Championship, took over most of the Midwestern events.
The LOORRS series was founded for the 2009 season by Lucas Oil and its head Forrest Lucas.[1][2]Carl Renezeder made short course off-road racing history in 2009 when he won the Unlimited 2 and Unlimited 4 class to become the first driver to win seven national championships.[3]
In December 2012, LOORRS announced that Ritchie Lewis would be taking over as the series' director.[4] He announced the 2013 series schedule; it would continue racing at most of the same tracks.[4] He also announced that Lucas would be building tracks at San Angelo, Texas and Lucas Oil Speedway to be used in 2014.[4]
In December 2018, the series announced plans to create a historic and long-awaited short course unification race [5] to take place in June 2019 at Lucas Oil Speedway. Regular LOORRS Racers competing against the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League Racers with drivers from each series would be able to win points for their respective championships. Unfortunately an untimely tornado[6] wreaked havoc in the area and severely damaged the track forcing official to cancel the event.
In June 2020, LOORRS cancelled the Pro 4 series races for the 2020 season as team participation was anticipated to be low.[7]Rockstar Energy Drink didn't renew their sponsorship of the series or for two top Pro 4 teams of Rob MacCachren and R.J. Anderson.[7]Kyle LeDuc decided to participate only in the Midwestern series.[7]
On November 12, 2020 Lucas Oil announced it would effectively fold the series due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty of another shutdown the following year.[8]
Classes
The Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series had the following classes:
Pro 4 Unlimited: Full-sized 4-wheel-drive race truck, over 700 hp.
Pro 2 Unlimited: Full-sized 2-wheel-drive race truck, over 700 hp.
Pro Lite Unlimited: Mid-sized 2-wheel-drive race truck built on a standardized chassis, over 450 hp.
Pro Buggy: Open-wheel buggies with up to 2000 cc motors (dependent on design and manufacturer), 210 hp.
Production Turbo UTV: Stock 100 cc 2 seat UTV, 130-160 hp.
Production 1000 UTV: Stock 100 cc 2 seat UTV, 80-110 hp.
Modified Kart: Advanced kart class utilizing 250 cc or 450 cc 48 hp motorcycle motors; for kids ages 10–15.
Junior 2 Kart: Intermediate spec kart class utilizing the Honda GX390 390 cc 12 hp motor; for kids ages 8–15.
Junior 1 Kart: Beginner spec kart class utilizing the Subaru EX27 266 cc 9 hp motor; for kids ages 8–15.
Limited Buggy: Open-wheel buggies with Type 1 1600 cc VW engines.
Unlimited UTV: Heavily modified UTV utilizing up to 1000 cc engines.
SR1 UTV: Heavily modified Yamaha Rhino or Kawasaki Teryx spec class utilizing the Yamaha R1 or Kawasaki ZX-10 1000 cc street bike motor.
SuperLite: Spec 2-wheel-drive truck regulated by the SuperLite Championship Series.
For the 2015 season, the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series was aired on several different networks with 8 confirmed one-hour episodes in HD on CBS and 32 confirmed HD episodes on both CBS Sports Network and MavTV.
