Championship Chases Turned Upside Down in COR’s Return to Dirt City

Both the Pro 2 and Pro Stock SXS points leads changed hands, while Pro 4 and Pro Mod SXS challengers narrowed the gap to the leaders in a big way, at the end of a crazy weekend for Championship Off-Road at Dirt City Motorplex on Saturday and Sunday. With Pro 4 and Pro 2 running both of their respective races on Sunday due to track conditions after rainfall, the chaotic weekend in the Pro classes has set up some exciting title battles for the sport’s long-awaited return to Bark River International Raceway later this month.

For starters, six different drivers took the six podium spots on offer in Pro 4, led by Johnny Greaves’ historic 100^th career class victory in the Sunday morning race and followed by an intense battle between the victorious Kyle LeDuc and CJ Greaves in the afternoon. LeDuc’s victory in the second race, and a better finish in the first one, would enable the defending champion to close the gap to just five points behind CJ Greaves heading into the final two events of the year.

As for Pro 2, a first-lap retirement by Keegan Kincaid in the Sunday morning race would swing the door wide open for the rest of the field, and multiple drivers would charge right through it. Ricky Gutierrez would strike first by winning the Sunday morning race, but Ryan Beat would win the second race to take over the points lead. Meanwhile, Jerett Brooks would use back-to-back podiums to climb back into second after a disastrous run at ERX Motor Park in the previous event and Cory Winner would jump up to third with a podium of his own on Sunday morning. Kincaid, however, would bounce back in the second race by showing the speed that allowed him to win the first three rounds of the year, finishing second in that event to maintain fourth in an ever-tightening points battle.

Rodney VanEperen would return to the top step of the Pro Mod SXS podium after a mudfest on Saturday and post the only double podium of the weekend in that class, allowing him to climb within eight points of Andrew Carlson for the lead. Carlson, who had swept the previous event at ERX in front of his hometown fans, nonetheless scored a third place finish in the Sunday race, which was won by Kyle Chaney.

Dirt City proved exceptionally kind to Brock Heger, who did more successful trophy hunting than anybody over the weekend with three wins and four podiums across the Pro Lite and Pro Stock SXS classes. Heger’s two Pro Lite wins have him 50 points ahead of Kyle Greaves, and while he gave up a few extra points to winner CJ Greaves on Saturday, he reclaimed the points lead on Sunday with a victory while Greaves finished eighth. Heger now has 11 victories on the season, six in Pro Lite and five in Pro Stock.

But Heger wasn’t the only driver to post a weekend sweep in a challenging Dirt City event. Michael Meister swept Pro Buggy and now has four wins in a row in that class, while Wesley Vande Voort (Short Course Kart) and Kody Krantz (170 SXS) were able to go back-to-back as well.

For full results of last weekend’s Championship Off-Road event at Dirt City Motorplex, click here.

The penultimate event of the 2021 Championship Off-Road season will see the series head to Bark River International Raceway on August 14-15, for the first time since taking over sanctioning of short course racing in the Midwest. Last year’s Bark River date was moved to ERX due to COVID-19 attendance restrictions.

Images via Championship Off-Road