The Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, also known as LOORRS, was a
short course off-road racing series in the United States and also in Mexico beginning in 2015. The series featured events in Arizona, California, Nevada, Missouri and hosted a weekend of racing in Ensenada, Mexico at Baja International Short Course near Estero Beach. The title sponsor for the series was
Lucas Oil Products, whom also owned, sanctioned, and operated the series.[1] It effectively replaced the
CORR series starting in 2009.
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 Thursday 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.