Hot and humid triple-digit weather greeted competitors and fans for Rounds 7 and 8 of the CORR Lucas Oil Racing Series in Chula Vista, California. The weather may have been unusually hot for Chula Vista in July, but the action on the track was what fans have come to expect from CORR short-course racing.
Since expanding the series out west, Jim Baldwin's efforts have attracted a legion of seasoned desert warriors to battle against the established stars of the CORR series. Some of the desert converts have had instant success in the wheel-to-wheel environment of short-course racing. Desert racer and single buggy driver Greg Boyer obviously inherited the short-course gene from his father, scoring a Second Place finish in his first race, Round 7, and a win in Round 8, his second time behind the wheel in a CORR race. Pro Lite driver Robert Naughton is in the top ten of one of the most competitive classes in CORR, which draws over 20 entries per race.
The newcomers to CORR read like a who's who of dirt racing: Jerry Welchel, Marty and Travis Coyne, Troy Herbst, Rodrigo Ampudia, John Marking, and Andrew Wehe. The list goes on and on in the buggy ranks with drivers Kevin Graves, Vic Bruckmann, Sean Kennedy, Ryan Schank, David Caspino, the Boyer family, and many others. With the series already home to some of the finest drivers on dirt like Johnny Greaves, Jeff Kincaid, Chad Hord, Art Schmitt, and Scott Taylor, this season looks to be a bare-knuckle brawl for the championship in every class. The fireworks between Scott Douglas and Carl Renezeder in Round 8's Pro 4 final are typical of this hard-fought, ultracompetitive racing series.