NASCAR on Dirt: My First Trip to the Crandon Off-Road World Championships
This year, I had the opportunity to attend the 2026 AMSOIL Polaris Off-Road World Championships in Crandon, Wisconsin, representing Cardo Systems and spending the weekend talking with racers and fans about off-road communications.
I’ve been around off-road racing for quite a while. I’ve attended and even co-driven the Mint 400 in the Sportsman class, worked around side-by-side racing, experienced some Ultra4 events, and spent plenty of time around the rock crawling and off-road scene here in Colorado and Utah. But short-course off-road racing? That was completely new to me.
And Crandon absolutely blew me away.
You realize pretty quickly that the World Championships aren't simply a race happening outside of Crandon. For Labor Day weekend, Crandon becomes an off-road racing town. That was obvious from the very first day when the parade completely took over downtown. The streets were packed with people, race vehicles and teams. It was loud, high-energy and just an amazing scene. Everywhere you looked, people were celebrating off-road racing. For someone experiencing Crandon for the first time, the parade was the perfect introduction to the weekend. This wasn't going to be an event where everyone quietly showed up at a racetrack, watched some racing and went home. The entire community was part of it. One of the coolest surprises for me was seeing Ken Roczen in the parade. As someone who has spent a lot of time around motorcycles and motocross, seeing one of the biggest names in Supercross joining the Crandon festivities was pretty awesome. But an even better moment came later in the weekend when I had the chance to meet him in the pits.
What I expected might be a quick hello turned into a genuinely relaxed 10- or 15-minute conversation. We ended up talking about our kids and, naturally, dirt bikes. I told him about getting my daughter Tatum into riding and watching her progress and develop on a dirt bike. Ken's kids are much younger, so he was talking about introducing them to motorcycles at a really young age and what that experience has been like for his family. It was just a really cool conversation between two dads talking about their kids and dirt bikes. At a Supercross race, having that kind of relaxed conversation with someone of Ken Roczen's stature would be impossible. There would be fans, media, sponsors, team obligations and a million other things happening around him. At Crandon, we were just standing around in the pits talking motorcycles and kids. Ken couldn't have been cooler about it, he was incredibly approachable and a genuinely classy guy, and it became one of those unexpected experiences that I'll remember from the weekend. Of course, Ken wasn't there just to hang out, he came to race. Unfortunately, his weekend ended dramatically when his truck caught fire during Sunday's final Pro 2 race. It was a bummer to see his weekend end that way, but watching him step completely outside his normal discipline and give short-course racing a shot was awesome. Having someone like Ken at Crandon also brought some of the energy, passion and fan base of Supercross into another corner of motorsports, which was really cool to see both live and on social media.
Another thing that immediately struck me was just how many people were actually participating in the racing. The weekend reminded me a lot of motocross. Friday and Saturday mornings were packed with amateur racing, and the range of competitors was incredible. You had little kids getting their first taste of competition, adult Sportsman racers, Pro-Am classes and eventually the full-blown professionals doing this for a living. At the top level, these are legitimate professional race teams with manufacturer support, serious equipment and incredibly talented drivers. But they're sharing the same event with families wrenching on race vehicles in the pits and kids who are just beginning to learn what racing is all about. That creates a progression within the sport that I think is really special. You can literally watch the next generation of racers developing while some of the best drivers in the world are competing during the same weekend.
Calling Crandon a small town is almost an understatement. It's tucked away in northern Wisconsin, and during race weekend it feels like the entire off-road world suddenly descends on this tiny community. There simply aren't enough hotel rooms anywhere close to the track for everyone, so camping becomes a huge part of the experience. RVs, trailers, race haulers and campsites seem to stretch forever. Nearly everyone in town volunteers at the event, working the gates and concession stands and taking on the massive job of keeping everything clean and they did an amazing job. There's a social atmosphere that comes with having so many people camping together. Grills are going, people are hanging out between races, families are celebrating good finishes, racers are working on vehicles, and fans are simply enjoying Labor Day weekend surrounded by the smell of race fuel and the sounds of straight pipes. Again, it reminded me a lot of motocross. Some families are there because their kid, spouse, brother, sister or friend is racing. Others don't have anyone in the race at all, they simply love the sport and want to spend the weekend watching trucks fly through the air while hanging out with a few thousand like-minded people. There was an energy to the entire place that is difficult to describe until you experience it. The best description I came up with during the weekend was NASCAR on dirt.
Coming from the desert and off-road world, one of the biggest differences was just how easy Crandon makes it to be a spectator. That's always been one of the challenges with traditional desert racing. At a race like the Mint 400 or Baja 1000, competitors travel so far away from towns or facilities, that traditional spectator options are slim. There are incredible moments happening throughout the race, but most fans will never actually see them live, and may only see clips that make it onto social media. Short-course racing completely changes that experience. At Crandon, fans can sit in the grandstands and actually watch the battle develop. Trucks are racing door-to-door, jumping, sliding, making passes and occasionally making contact right in front of you. Short lap times mean the action is consistently in front of you no matter where on the track you are sitting. Then between races, you can walk through the vendor area, grab some food, visit the pits, talk with brands, check out race vehicles and spend time with other fans before heading back to watch the next race. It creates a legitimate spectator experience around off-road racing, and when the professional classes hit the track, the energy level goes through the roof.
I was there primarily to work, running the Cardo Systems booth and talking with people about communication in off-road vehicles. But being at the booth also gave me an interesting perspective on the event. Our location was between the main spectator area and a huge portion of the camping area, so traffic came in waves throughout the weekend. When a major race started, the vendor area could suddenly become almost empty. Then the race would finish and hundreds of people would come pouring back through. That rhythm made it very clear what everyone was really there for: racing. It also gave me the opportunity to talk with a huge cross-section of the off-road community, from families and recreational side-by-side owners to racers and fans who had traveled a long way simply because Crandon is one of those events they don't want to miss.
Coming from Colorado and the western U.S., I also found the Midwest off-road culture fascinating. Side-by-sides were everywhere. Out West, I'm accustomed to seeing plenty of sport and adventure-oriented machines built for desert riding, mountain trails and technical terrain. Around Crandon, I saw a huge number of more utility-oriented side-by-sides, many with enclosed or semi-enclosed cabs. It was a reminder that "off-road" means something slightly different depending on where you are in the country, but the enthusiasm is exactly the same. People love their machines., they love racing and competition, and they love being outside. Finally, they love getting together with other people who feel the same way.
I went into the weekend knowing Crandon was an important event in the off-road racing world; I left understanding why. The racing is incredible, but Crandon is much bigger than what happens on the track. It's an entire town lining the streets for a parade, it's families camping together for Labor Day weekend, it's little kids beginning their racing careers on the same weekend that factory-supported professionals are competing at the highest level. It's meeting someone you've watched race Supercross for years and somehow ending up having a conversation about your kids like any two dads would, and it's thousands of people filling the grandstands to watch trucks race door-to-door and fly through the air. It's loud. It's dusty. It's in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. And it's an absolute blast.
After years of experiencing desert racing, motocross, side-by-side events and other corners of the off-road world, it was awesome to discover another completely different version of motorsports culture. Crandon feels like part motocross race, part festival, part family reunion and part NASCAR on dirt. The energy was high, the racing was incredible, the people were welcoming, and the entire weekend was just plain fun. My first trip to the Crandon Off-Road World Championships definitely won't be my last.
I can't wait to go back next year.
