BUCHANAN — This Memorial Day weekend the Traxxas TORC Series, presented by AMSOIL will invade Red Bud as the legendary motocross track hosts its first-ever off-road truck race.

What started as an idea back in the fall of 2010, will become a reality this weekend when the trucks take to the newly-built Red Bud truck track.

That track will use some of the features of the original features of the motocross course, but much of it has been created over the past couple of months to accommodate the truck series, which needed a wider racing surface for its participants.

The weekend will begin on Friday with practice. Gates will open at 8 a.m. and one practice session for each of the 13 classes will be held beginning at 5 p.m.

There will be another practice session for the classes beginning at 9 a.m. on Saturday and the opening ceremonies are slated to begin at 10:50 a.m.

Racing will begin at 11 a.m. and continue through 2:45 in the following classes:

• Classix and Formula 4×4

• Stock Truck (Enduro)

• Super Truck (Ltd 2WD) and Limited 4×4

• 600 Light Buggy

• 1600 Buggy

• Super Stock Truck

• Super Buggy

At 3:05 p.m. on Saturday, the Traxxas R/C Exhibition will be held. That will be followed by the Traxxas R/C Pro Driver Challenge at 5:30.

Racing continues on Sunday with the TORC R/C Race Truck ride-along at 3:05 p.m.

The Traxxas PRO Light Truck race will follow at 3:20. The AMSOIL Pro 2WD Truck race will begin at 4 p.m. and the PRO 4×4 Truck will wrap up action at 4:35.

Tickets are $40 for adults and $20 for kids 12 and under for the entire race weekend. Saturday only or Sunday only tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for kids.

Race fans can also camp at Red Bud for the weekend. The cost is $40 per vehicle through Saturday and $55 per vehicle through Sunday.

Tickets are available at the gate throughout the weekend.

This historic event at Red Bud also gives the TORC Series a chance to introduce race fans to its newest partner — Mopor and Ram Truck.

In April, Mopar and Ram announced that they would be the official vehicle of the series and the new Ram Runner was unveiled. The Ram Runner is the official pace truck of the series and will be used for the first time this weekend at Red Bud.

The Ram Runner is a production truck that has all the looks of a desert off-road racing machine. The best part about it is that the Ram Runner is street legal and can be purchased by race fans who would like to have one.

Jason Smith, senior vice president of Race Operations for Mopar and Ram, said about the new truck, “there’s only two serious off-road production trucks on the market and I’m not sure the other one could handle the TORC course’s pace truck duties. The Mopar Ram Runner is, hands down, the premier vehicle in its class and will no doubt serve us well at our nine nationwide stops on the TORC Series tour this summer and fall.”

Smith and track designer Jeff Nordstrom talked about how the 1.1-mile Red Bud track came to be.

The entire creation is part of a two-stage process. According to Nordstrom, his team came to Buchanan a couple of months ago and started to move some things around.

“We came out here and went through some things, moved some dirt around and kind of got a layout,” he said. “We have now been out here about a week and a half to begin fine tuning it. So it’s a couple week process.

“We started back in March with kind of a walk through and just kind of staked out what we thought was a doable track,” Smith added. “Then we had a couple of drivers come out and give us some input. We had to make sure we had straightaways that were long enough so that they could kind of get into a higher gears and thinks like that.

“So overall, it was a site plan back in November of last year and then came in March and did a walk through. Came back in April with some drivers and then really laid the stakes out that that point. From that point on, they started doing some positioning if he needed lay dirt or move some stuff and then Jeff came in about 10 days ago and started doing the cutting.”

Both Smith and Nordstrom agreed that the natural layout of Red Bud made it easier to construct the racing surface and will give the drivers a challenge this weekend.

“Most tracks, when we go to a temporary facility, it’s just an oval track, you know, that’s flat and there’s nothing in the middle and there is no jumps,” Smith said. “So the only thing you can do because you can’t dig down in those places so you have to put everything up on top of the existing dirt. One of the biggest things at one of those types of place is you have to haul in dirt and build things up.

“Here, you’ve got such a gorgeous property that is rolling that’s got natural hills and natural jumps and things like that that allow you to just shape so that when a truck hits it, it’s a natural jump. Actually, where we are sitting right now was one of the first views I actually had of the property and immediately I thought ‘oh, wow this is gorgeous’ we have got to figure out how to cut a track into what’s out there right now.”

Smith added that the job Jeff and his crew have done is going to make it both fun and challenging for the drivers and exciting for the fans.

“The uphill jump is going to be one of the exciting parts,” Nordstrom pointed out.

“The big step-up jump is going to be one that’s going to get the pros’ attention, but honestly, the one that we went on the back side over there, we will kind of call it a drop-off jump,” Smith said. “I think that’s the one that is going to get a lot of air. Every division that races on that one that will be the farthest they jump of any of them. From a driver’s standpoint, it’s a blind landing, so when you take off you don’t know what’s on the bottom side. The same with the step-up, when you do it, you have got to be committed.”

Nordstrom said that it’s a real good driver’s track.

“It’s a more technical track, so you have to have a lot of skill to do it. It’s going to be exciting,” he said.