Ultra4 Short Course World Championships Coming to Crandon Labor Day Weekend
- Extreme Rock Racing Returns to Polaris Crandon World Championships --
CRANDON, Wisconsin (July 31, 2024): A time-tested key to Crandon International Raceway's 55-year success story is doing everything possible to produce great entertainment for faithful fans and world-class racers. Taking this philosophy to heart, Crandon International Raceway and Hammerking Productions have finalized plans for the newly named Crandon Ultra4 Short Course World Championships taking place August 29 - September 1, 2024 as part of the 55th Polaris Crandon World Championship Off-Road Races®.
Ultra4's top category (4400 unlimited vehicles) have competed at the track's legendary Polaris Crandon World Championships since 2018. However, in recent years, Crandon has expanded the weekend schedule and its facility to host all Ultra4 categories to include 4400 Unlimited, 4800 Limited, 4500 Modified, 4600 Stock, Stock Sportsman and SXS classes.
4x4 DIVERSITY IN TURN 1: Ultra4 brings a wide variety of exotic four-wheel drive machinery to Crandon each year, including the more production-based classes of the Everyman Challenge race (top) and the rapidly expanding categories for high-performance UTV machines. (Photo: Jason Zindroski)
More than 120 Ultra4 racers participated in the Polaris Crandon World Championships last September, joining several hundred more traditional off-road short-course competitors that make up the AMSOIL Champ Off-Road Series. The diverse group of Ultra4 race teams have roots all across America and Canada, with the rugged form of the sport made famous by the annual "King of the Hammers" event in California.
Always trying to improve the "Crandon Experience" for both racers and fans, in the past three years the facility has greatly improved its rock sections within the track's "UltraCross" configuration of the traditional 1.75-mile Crandon race course. That expansion included adding two rock sections to an area just after the Crandon finish line and in the Ponsse Barn Turn, plus enhancing the track's 100-acre Crandonland off-road park and Ultra4 camping area. In 2022, those upgrades included completely reconfiguring a new Ultra4 spectator area with better viewing and improved fan hospitality.
All Ultra4 racers are invited to register for the Crandon Ultra4 Short Course World Championships and reservations for designated camp sites in Ultra4's Crandonland beginning Friday, August 2 at 12:00 noon (CST) by visiting www.ultra4usa.com.
ULTRA4 THROWING DOWN: Armed with massive horsepower, large tires and sophisticated drivetrains, Ultra4 machines provide eye-opening performance. The sport's biggest names like legendary Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame racer Shannon Campbell (top) are crowd favorites, as is the rock-pounding spectacle of Crandon's Rage on the Rocks night race. (Photo: Jason Zindroski)
"Several years ago we set out to expand our Labor Day weekend to include more off-road racers from around the country," explained Crandon President Cliff Flannery. "The addition of Ultra4 racing has been a huge hit with our fans, which was the motivation for building a more permanent set-up in terms of the track, camping and the overall experience. With the support of Hammerking Productions, Ultra4 racing at the Polaris Crandon World Championships will continue to be welcome here."
For 2024, all Ultra4 racers will participate in two rounds of Crandon's World Championship open practice on Thursday, August 29, with the UTV and Everyman Challenge categories racing on Friday, August 30 as part of the Forest Country Potawatomi "Friday Night Thunder." All races will be broadcast live to a national audience via a recently announced alliance with the MAVTV network.
On Saturday night, August 31 all Ultra4 classes will hit the rocks under the lights at Crandon's 4th annual "Rage on the Rocks" night race. The spectacle takes place in the dark using portions of the track's original course and the Ultra4Cross course. Not only will all the action be broadcast live on the MAVTV network, but Ultra4 UTV and Everyman Challenge category winners will earn a coveted 2024 Crandon World Champion ring.
Then the unlimited Class 4400 drivers will try to earn their Crandon World Championship rings on Sunday, September 1, as part of the 9th annual Red Bull Crandon World Cup. Last year's Crandon ULTRA4 Red Bull Cup champion was drifting star Vaughn Gitten Jr., who will return with teammate and former champion Loren Healy.
The 55th Polaris Crandon World Championships is set to take place Labor Day weekend from August 29 - September 1, 2024. Long established as the largest short course off-road race in the world, the largest field of Sportsman and Pro category competitors are expected at the iconic facility for four days and nights of door-to-door action. Racers will be looking to earn Crandon World Championship rings in front of a projected weekend crowd more than 60,000 strong. The World Championships will culminate for the Pro categories on Crandon Red Bull World Cup Sunday (September 1) with the finale pitting Pro 2 and Pro 4 unlimited trucks racing together in the 9th annual Red Bull Cup race.
For more information and tickets please visit: www.crandonroffroad.com
About Crandon International Raceway:
Every athletic form of competition has its iconic “holy grail” location; magic places that organically merge time, place and history in locations often imitated -- but certainly not duplicated. For off-road racing, that unlikely theater of speed is found deep within Wisconsin’s Northwoods at a place better known as the “Big House.” Located just 100 miles northwest of Green Bay and just outside of the tiny hamlet of Crandon (population: 1,386), for 54 years Crandon International Raceway has provided three generations of fans with dirt throwing, high-intensity action and history-making performances. Crandon’s purpose-built, 400-acre facility is the finest on earth and has long hosted the largest crowds in short-course off-road racing history. Featuring more than 2,100 grass camping sites, fans enjoy two big weekends of racing each year at Camp Crandon. For more information please visit www.crandonoffroad.com.
