CRANDON, Wis. — Taking significant steps toward the future by making a substantial investment in its past, Crandon International Raceway has announced a new Crandon Historical Initiative that includes an official partnership with the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Designed to pay tribute to the short-course style of the sport made famous by Crandon’s annual Polaris World Championship Off-Road Races and Forest County Potawatomi Brush Run events, the innovative program represents a long term investment in bringing history alive.
Crandon’s Historical Initiative is a multi-year program created to provide the sport of off-road short course racing a long overdue home. A joint project between the track ownership of Cliff Flannery and his family, the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame, and Crandon Promoter Marty Fiolka, the program features three distinctive elements.
The new project was first presented Labor Day weekend’s Crandon Gold Ticket VIP reception, an annual event that kicks off the annual Polaris Crandon World Championship and Red Bull Crandon World Cup weekend.
A major component to the concept is the newly completed partnership with the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame, allowing the race track to build the very first official annex of the prestigious organization.
In the coming years Crandon International Raceway will convert its iconic Lucas Oil Barn into an interactive Crandon Museum focusing on the colorful history of short course off-road racing and its legendary home – Crandon International Raceway. Once completed, the facility will serve as a tourist attraction open to the public during the summer months and race weekends.
The new museum at Crandon International Raceway will see a revitalization of the upstairs area of the Lucas Oil Barn, a structure that once served the original dairy farm that the original Crandon International Off-Road Racing Association purchased in 1984.
While not finalized, current plans call for the museum space to house vintage short- course racing vehicles, driver and event memorabilia, interactive displays and videos, a Crandon Wall of Fame to honor local volunteers and Midwest Sportsman drivers, as well as a new Crandon “Walk of Fame” for race winners talking the victorious stroll from the track to the podium area. The remodeled building is also expected to house a new Crandon Media Center.
The announcement ceremony at September’s event included a special and donation by members of Crandon’s original board of directors to ORMHOF in the amount $30,000 to obtain the rights to build the annex.
In addition, Crandon Motorsports LLC, the track’s current ownership group, donated an additional $11,000 to ORMHOF raised earlier in the day via the second annual Lucas Oil Legends UTV Poker Run. Along with ORMHOF Executive Administrator Barbara Rainey, a group of eight Hall of Fame Inductees were also recognized including Cliff Flannery, Marty Fiolka, Frank DeAngelo, Bill Savage, Curt LeDuc, Scott Taylor, Shannon Campbell and Brad Lovell.
“The Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame is looking forward to partnering with Crandon International Raceway to celebrate the history of short course racing,” said ORMHOF executive administrator Barbara Rainey, who represented the ORMHOF board of directors at the check presentation.
The second component to the program is the Crandon-led initiative of creating a new vintage historic short course racing association. Modeled after the highly successful and popular vintage sports car racing found in such organization as HSR (Historic Sportscar Racing) and historic desert off-road racing led by the rebirth of NORRA (National Off-Road Racing Association), the yet-to-named organization will focus on telling the colorful history of short-course off-road racing through restoration, display and on-track competition.
The first date for the new vintage short course group will take place on the weekend of June 24 -26, 2023 in association with the annual Forest County Potawatomi Crandon Brush Run event. Appropriately, the historic off-road motorsports reunion will take place on the 30th anniversary of Crandon’s long and special relationship with the Forest County Potawatomi community.
An important component to the new vintage racing association will be the inclusion of all types of short-course off-road machinery. From the earliest homebuilt pipe buggies that won the first Crandon Brush Run 101 in 1970 to the vast array of vehicles that ran in such places as Riverside and the iconic Mickey Thompson stadium series, all qualifying cars will be welcome.
The overriding factors in the new organization will be on having fun, sharing history and breathing life back in to old and often forgotten pieces of off-road racing’s past.