In the great wide world of racing, there are several great forms that sadly get overlooked.
USAC, Star Mazda, Formula BMW. All great series' with good action, but often shoved off to the side and treated like the weird uncle nobody likes to talk about. The problem is mostly that these are lower-tier championships that few care about if they're not trying to get into racing.
Among all those forgotten series, there exists one that is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves.
I am of course speaking of the pure awesomeness that is CORR: Championship Off-Road Racing.
This series was very much off my radar until this past season. I always felt off-road sports were meant for dirtbikes and other such stuff that belongs in the X Games.
Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy the X Games and all associated sports, but I've always felt it just doesn't quite compare with what I prefer.
Then I saw CORR. And all I can say is: HOLY SH*T, this stuff is awesome.
NASCAR, F1, Indy Car, ALMS, Motorcross, MotoGP... All PUSSIES compared to the drivers in CORR.
If you want action-packed racing, CORR is the series for you. There's nothing wrong with it at all. The courses are always great, the passing is always great, the impacts are hard, the crashes are spectacular, and it all happens so fast that you can't look away.
The thing is, no one can be told exactly what CORR is.
You must see it for yourself.
And I'm not just trying to be cliché here, it's genuinely impossible to express how awesome CORR is in words. If I spent days making a 2,000-page entry on how great CORR is, I still wouldn't be able to give the full impact.
And so I'll stop my ranting here and simply encourage you to load up this link and view ANY of the highlight videos shown on the menu (I strongly recommend the 2008 Primm highlights).
CORR, in my opinion, has one flaw holding it back from being able to take on the giant that is NASCAR (or even Indy Car or ALMS): Each round is too short.
I would not want racing of this type to be LENGTHENED (for reasons that are obvious once you've seen it), but I still believe it will be the only thing that will hold it back. Thank God there are several races per day.
Let us spread that word of CORR! While this series may not be capable of dominating the country, we must not let it die out. Spread the word and bring in new fans for the 2009 season!
I just hope after having to cancel their final 2008 round that there WILL be a 2009 season...
9 comments Last one added 6 months ago — Leave a Comment
Saraswathi Siriginia 6 months ago
Well, I am all for more racing but F1 is more fun
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Saraswathi Siriginia 6 months ago
And you seem to be coming out with some unique and great articles, keep the great work going
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Ryan Torres 6 months ago
Sorry F1 is not more fun then action packed short course off road racing. Before the end of the first lap the close racing and contact between the trucks makes for a lot of lost body panels.
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Lola Judd 6 months ago
Wouldn't longer CORR races drive up costs? CORR has had a lot of great races.
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D-Boy 6 months ago
That's one reason I said I would NOT want to lengthen the races.
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Ryan Torres 6 months ago
I am a media photographer for CORR and I get to stand in the dirt during the races and get a really close view. Even if they added 5 to 10 laps there would be at least 30%-50% fewer finishing trucks. It's too rough and close contact for longer races.
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Lola Judd 6 months ago
I'm glad non-spec tires are allowed in Pro 4.
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James Broomhead 6 months ago
Couldn't agree more. The motorsports subscription channel in the UK shows CORR (and the poor imitation WSORR) during the off season to keep up some fresh programming, and has done for a few years now.
The first year I saw it I believed it was the worst form of racing ever devised and could only have been invented by stereotypical Americans, yet after watching a full race it became compulsive viewing. Any race series where you can roll a few times, bounce back to your wheel and keep going is fine by me.
Shame to hear it's having troubles (related to the economic quagmire?) and hope it comes back for '09 (so I have some racing to watch this time next year).
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D-Boy 6 months ago
They did cite the economy as a reason for canceling the season finale, but claimed that doing so would allow them to save enough money to run a better, and more complete, 2009 season. Hopefully that wasn't just smoke and mirrors.
While I do like NASCAR, I think CORR is a much more suitable flagship series for a country like America. And unlike NASCAR, it can easily be much more appealing to the rest of the world(although I'm told NASCAR's gained a lot of worldwide popularity since Montoya jumped ship from F1).
I think that, ultimately, CORR will be back in 2009. Its an impressively cheap series to run(compared to NASCAR or IndyCar, at least), partially due to the toughness of the racing equipment(a lot fewer parts get replaced on those trucks after a race than in just about any other series). You can tell by the size of the fields in all the classes(pushing 30 per race per class) that there's plenty of interest, and I think if CORR has issues supporting itself, it won't take too much outside assistance to pick it back up.
The economic crisis might be the best time overall for CORR's rise to popularity, as companies trying to promote their products look for cheaper advertising sponsorships. Timing this rise with the economic crisis certainly isn't going to hurt CORR anymore than the crisis would have had it remained unknown.
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