Championship Off-Road drivers will have to re-orient themselves when the 2023 season begins at Antigo Lions Roaring Raceway in June. The Wisconsin-based track will have a face-lift overseen by Pro 4 driver Kyle LeDuc that flips the direction in which racers will go. A graphic by Brian Rocky Alsteen of Airhead Designs of the new layout was revealed during last weekend’s 2022 COR awards banquet.
Alsteen posted, “Antigo race track will be wild to race at this year !!! Going in opposite direction!! Thanks Zach Zagar and Kyle Leduc for letting me do the artwork for the track layout !!”
Unlike in the past, the track now goes in a clockwise direction. Although it retains the same infield layout of a large hairpin, much of the differences come in dirt jumps featured. For example, while the frontstretch still features a pair of ramps and the tabletops at the infield’s mouth and exit remain, the backstretch’s two wide-sweeping jumps have been replaced by a series of triple doubles. The hairpin, now a sharp left due to the orientation flip, has a high roller jump.
LeDuc wrote in response to 1600 Light Buggy racer Jeff Wolfe‘s post about the track, “I’ll make sure it’s legit!!” The course designer finished runner-up in the 2022 COR Pro 4 championship battle to C.J. Greaves, who won both races in the Antigo opener. That weekend also saw the series experiment with the Yokohama Duel of Champions, a head-to-head tournament between Pro 2 drivers with the winner Jerett Brooks receiving $10,000.
Other pro class winners at the Antigo weekend included Mickey Thomas and Ricky Gutierrez (Pro 2), Brock Heger (swept both Pro Lite and Pro Turbo SxS), Gray Leadbetter and Nick Visser (Pro SPEC), and Rodney VanEperen and Kyle Chaney (Pro Turbo SxS). Among the sportsman category victors were Michael Meister and Mark Stenhardt (Super Buggy), Logan Christensen and Tyler Remmereid (Pro Am SxS), Chase Braun and Ethan Dresel (570 SxS), Trent Peetz and Matt Vanderheyden (Sportsman SxS), Joe Maciosek and Ben Holtger (Super Stock Truck), John Fitzgerald (1600 Single Buggy), Porter Inglese (Mod Kart), Wyatt Olson and Ashton Dreher (170 SxS), Finley Holtger (Short Course Kart), Brian Peot and Cory Holtger (Stock Truck), and Greg Stingle and Connor Schulz (1600 Light Buggy).
LeDuc, a seven-time Pro 4 class champion, has also raced in Extreme E since the inaugural season in 2021 for Chip Ganassi Racing. He and Sara Price scored their first XE win in Sardinia during the 2022 season, though LeDuc was replaced by fellow Pro 4 racer RJ Anderson for the finale in Uruguay due to scheduling conflicts.
The 2023 season begins on 10/11 June.
