Desafío Corona

The Desafio Corona was a series in Mexico. NASCAR founded the series in 2004 in conjunction with OCESA, a Mexican entertainment company. The business partnership between NASCAR and OCESA resulted in the creation of a new entity, now officially known as NASCAR Mexico. The former Desafio Corona series is now known as NASCAR Mexico Series.

The series was originally known as MasterCard Truck Series, which was a Craftsman Truck Series look-alike series, founded in 2002.

After the intervention of OCESA, and with the help of SELCA, the Truck Series began to be operated by OCESA Automovilismo, while SELCA was responsible for running the show, being the sanctioning body of the series. After the end of the 2003 season, it was presented at the season finale, the Teleton 100, the new 2004 stock car, a Pontiac Grand Prix, which marked the end of the trucks chapter, and the start of a new era: stock car racing in Mexico.

After that, working together with NASCAR, they started to work on safety aspects of cars, adoption of new rules, and rebuilding existing race tracks, or even building new ones.

Their first season started with a schedule of 14 races, with Mara Reyes (Telmex #1 Pontiac) taking pole position for the season opener in Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, a race where 26 cars started the race, a big number for Mexican motorsports. This race was won by Jorge Goeters (Canel's #18 Pontiac), after 90 laps to the 1-mile (1.6 km) oval.

The series then went to Guadalajara and Querétaro, races won by Carlos Contreras, but bad luck came in the 4th race in Monterrey, where in lap 37 of the race, driver Marcelo Nuñez lost control of his car, and was struck at full speed by Rafael Vallina. Nuñez spent a week in intensive therapy, only to die of complications by the crash, including a broken pelvic bone a perforated lung.

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