Last year, I went to Wisconsin to check out the Crandon Off-Road World Championships. While I do get a little dirty with off-road racing, it’s mostly around rock crawling and desert racing on the west coast, not so much short course. I’ve only ever shot short course once before in Glen Helen for a Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series race back in 2015.

If there was ever a race that I absolutely had to attend to absorb as much of this motorsport’s culture as possible, Crandon would be the place to go. Many people see it as the Mecca of short course off-road.

I’ve only ever heard great things about it so I knew, going into it, that it would probably live up to its hype. And of course it did.

The organizers estimate that roughly 50,000 or more people show up each year to camp out and watch the races take place. Keep in mind, the town of Crandon has a population of LESS than 2,000 people. The closest major city to Crandon is Green Bay, which is almost two hours away. Why do so many people come out to the middle of Wisconsin for the biggest short course race in the world? I don’t know but it’s amazing, every bit of it.

The race takes place over the course of Labor Day Weekend which makes it perfect because everyone sees it as the perfect mini vacation opportunity.

Teams come from all across the United States. Many of the west coast athletes like Casey Currie, Brian Deegan, RJ Anderson, Bryce Menzies, and more all make the drive to Wisconsin just for this one race weekend. And the fans love it. There are many short course fans in the Midwest that never get to see the west coast racers so they go crazy for them when they do appear.

Now to the racing itself, it’s action packed. Every possible short course class races during the famous Labor Day race. But the best one comes last…

The last race to finish off all the racing prior to it is the final Pro 2 vs Pro 4 race. They grid up the Pro 2 drivers in a land rush start and launch them, then wait a moment before launching the Pro 4 drivers in the same fashion. Then it becomes a cat and mouse race where the Pro 2 drivers try their best to stay ahead of the Pro 4 drivers to claim the top step.

I have a ton of images from this year’s race so keep scrolling to check them out. Everything below this is ordered chronologically starting from the Labor Day Parade down to the last race. Remember, they’re all in 4k so simple click if you’d like to save it.

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