Las Vegas’ Menzies Motorsports maintains point leads In 3 classes after 12 races in 16-race 2008 CORR Series

Rounds 13 & 14 to be held Oct. 25-26 at Las Vegas International Off-Road Raceway in Primm, Nev.

Las Vegas, Nevada (September 16, 2008)—Menzies Motorsports of Las Vegas continues its strong performance in the 2008 Championship Off-Road Racing (CORR) short-course series by leading the point standings in three of the four classes it competes in after 12 rounds of the 16-race 2008 CORR series.

Rob MacCachren, who leads the all-Las Vegas six-driver, eight-vehicle team with 70 career short-course class race wins (43 in CORR), is at the top of the leader board in both the Pro-2 and the Pro Buggy divisions while teammate Bryan Freeman has been singularly stunning in leading the Single Buggy class so far in 2008. They have both led their respective classes since the start of the season in April.

Rounds 11 and 12 were held Sept. 13-14 in front of capacity crowds at the 10,000-seat Chula Vista International Raceway that features a .82-mile purpose-built track know commonly as ‘The Quarry’ near San Diego.

As a team, Menzies Motorsports’ ‘Big Red Machine’ now has 20 individual race wins and 36 total podium finishes after the first 12 races of the 2008 CORR Series season.
After winning Round 12 in Chula Vista to give him wins in six of the 12 races so far in 2008 and finishing second and third in two others, MacCachren has 1145 points to lead Pro-2 by 49 points in the No. 21 Rockstar Ford F-150. In Pro Buggy, where he has four wins and four seconds, he has 1136 points and leads by 50 points in the No. 921 BFG Tires Honda-powered AlumiCraft open wheel desert race car. MacCachren, a three-time AARWBA All-America motorsports team selection, has finished fourth, fifth, sixth and 18th in the other four Pro-2 races so far this season and 10th twice, ninth and sixth once each in the four other Pro Buggy races.

Freeman, a third-generation desert racer, has won nine of 12 races in Single Buggy and is the top rookie driver in his class, with 1256 points to lead the class by 198 points in the No. 307 Nevada Off-Road Buggy Fraley-VW. He has also been the fastest qualifier in 10 of 12 races so far in 2008. In Chula Vista last weekend, he won on Saturday and finished second on Sunday. His two other non-win finishes were a seventh and a fourth.

MacCachren and Freeman’s Menzies Motorsports teammates, who are also all from Southern Nevada, and their current positions in the 2008 CORR points are: Bryce Menzies, son of team owner Steve Menzies (13th, Pro Lite, No. 7 Fox Shox Ford Ranger and 25th, Pro-2 after racing just three times in the new No. 7 Menzies Motorsports Ford F-150), Bruce Fraley (8th, Pro Lite, No. 12 MSD Ford Ranger), Larry Job (7th, Pro Buggy, No. 907 MasterCraft AlumiCraft-Honda) and Brock Krahenbuhl, Steve Menzies’ son-in-law who has four third place and two second-place finishes so far this year (3rd, Single Buggy, No. 312 KMC Fraley).

Menzies Motorsports class wins so far 2008 have come from MacCachren (10--6 in Pro 2, 4 in Pro Buggy), Menzies (1 in Pro Lite) and Freeman (9 in Single Buggy).

While Freeman won one of his two Single Buggy races in the second 2008 race weekend in Chula Vista, Menzies ran the team’s new No. 7 Menzies Motorsports Ford F-150 in Chula Vista for just the second and third time with a surprising sixth place on Saturday and a 15th on Sunday.

In all, ‘The Big Red Machine’ was impressive in the CORR Chula Vista weekend with two race wins and three seconds for five total podium placements in the two races.

While MacCachren has more than 20 years of short-course or stadium-style off-road racing experience the rest of the group are either total rookies or close to it in this form of the sport. Menzies and Fraley finished one-two in Single Buggy point’s last year, but this is the first year that either one of them has driven a race truck and this is the first full season for Job, Freeman and Krahenbuhl in this type of racing.

“It’s tough to complain about a first and a fifth in Pro 2 and a pair of seconds in Pro Buggy, but in both classes we lost some of our season point’s lead,” said MacCachren, who also splits driving in the No. 1 Rockstar/Makita Ford F-150 SCORE Trophy-Truck in the SCORE Desert Series. “We’re doing very well, but so are several other racers. In Pro Buggy we had four straight races prior to last weekend where we had flat tires that were not the fault of the tires at all. We got that figured out and earned two podiums in Chula Vista. Now we’re into the fourth quarter and we have to hold onto our point leads. We will be doing a lot more testing and we look forward to racing on our ‘hometown track’ in Primm for the second time this year in October. I would much rather be first right now, than second, but it’s more important to be first at the end of the season.”

“As a team, we continue to improve and develop more consistency and it showed in Chula Vista where we combined for five podium placements during the weekend and each day seven of our eight vehicles finished in the top 10 of their respective classes. These are all good things. And Bryce Menzies, our youngest driver got a sixth in Pro 2 in Round 11 in just his second race in the class.”
Next up for Menzies Motorsports will be Rounds 13 and 14 of the 2008 CORR Series, to be held Oct. 25-26 at the Las Vegas International Off-Road Raceway, in Primm, Nev., 45 miles south of Las Vegas.

NBC will air a one and one-half hour show from Round 12 of the CORR Series at 11:30 a.m. (PDT) on Sunday, Oct. 5 on NBC. Round 11 was televised LIVE on SPEED.

Menzies Motorsports is based out of a state-of-the-art 31,000-square foot race shop in southwest Las Vegas and the new team also has a test facility with a one-mile track southeast of Las Vegas which is laid out nearly identical to the course at the Las Vegas International Off-Road Raceway in Primm, Nev.

Owned by Las Vegas contractor Steve Menzies, the team is making a major impact despite being in only its second season overall and first year with more than two drivers.

Prominent Kroyer Racing Engines of Las Vegas builds and maintains the Ford truck engines and the Honda Pro Buggy motors for Menzies Motorsports while Southern California’s FAT Performance builds and maintains the VW Single Buggy engines.

The chassis for the two Pro 2 trucks and the two Pro Lite trucks were all built by Dave Clark, MacCachren’s crew chief, at his race shop in Banning, Calif.

The chassis for the two Pro Buggy race cars were built by John Cooley’s AlumiCraft of Santee, Calif. while the chassis for the two Single Buggy race cars were built in Las Vegas by Menzies Motorsports’ driver Bruce Fraley.

While the AlumiCraft vehicles, somewhat similar to Class 10 cars in the desert, are new this season, the Fraley cars, somewhat similar to Class 1-2/1600 cars in the desert, were built for last season and finished 1-2 in the season class point standings with Menzies and Fraley driving.

For ticket information and more information on the CORR Series, visit www.corracing.com .
For more information on Menzies Motorsports, visit www.menziesmotorsports.com.