NORRS hits Valley with debut race

Valley Press on ^ | Thursday, May 21, 2009. | BRIAN GOLDEN

[BenLurkin]

The mischievous joy of off-road racing is earthen anarchy, the spreading of soil to the four winds. Oh, there'll be plenty of that when the upstart National Off Road Racing Series (NORRS) debuts this holiday weekend at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds.

But what will really be on display will be the antithesis of off-roading.

NORRS will be trying to pick up the pieces of Championship Off Road Racing (CORR), which collapsed last November after whipping everyone from NBC Sports to Valley race fans into a frenzy for two years about what some call the NASCAR of the new century.

No one should expect to see the remarkable Fairgrounds scene of April, 2007, when CORR expanded beyond its Chula Vista backyard with a spare-no-expense spectacular that looked even more impressive on NBC Sports' tape-delayed broadcast a week later.

"The track will be smaller, about seven-tenths of a mile," said Bill Markel, the longtime desert racer from Lancaster who's been consulting NORRS on construction at the Fairgrounds grandstand the past two weeks. "We won't be using the desert portion of the track (on the northern boundary of the Fairgrounds) that CORR used two years ago.

"But it's still going to be a challenging layout, and there's a 100-foot jump on the front stretch that the fans loved so much two years ago."

NORRS is banking on the stadium off-road passion that rocked the Fairgrounds for two weekends in 2007 remaining ready to be reignited this weekend.

The San Diego-based Pollock Construction Company, which handled all of CORR's track construction, has been on-site at the Fairgrounds since a horse racing conflict at the L.A. County Fairplex forced the relocation of NORRS' kickoff event nearly three weeks ago.

[BenLurkin]

"HARD AT WORK - Bulldozers create jumps for the track being put in for the NORRS competition at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds on May 23-24."

MOLLY HAUXWELL/Valley Press