ERIKSSON BREAKS HIS PROPSHAFT – AND HIS VICTORY DUCK – IN NITRO RX
Swede Oliver Eriksson overcame propshaft issues in the final of the
Nitro Rallycross Championship’s seventh round to claim his first series win, in the first-ever ice race for topflight rallycross.
Eriksson qualified for the front row of the final grid together with polesitter and brother Kevin Eriksson, the pair finding form in a season of misfortune for the Olsbergs MSE team.
Racing at Trois-Rivieres in Canada, the single-specification all-electric FC1-X cars all used large studs in the tyres to find grip on the slippery surface. Jamaican driver Fraser McConnell headed the Battle
Brackets section of the event on Friday to secure the top qualifying position, beating DRR JC stable-mate Andreas Bakkerud in the last run.
On Saturday it was the Eriksson brothers that starred, both drivers winning their heat races to progress directly through to the final. Series founder and reigning champion
Travis Pastrana, carrying a tribute livery to the late Ken Block, won the first of the semi-finals while Bakkerud claimed semi-final two to lock out row two of the final grid, but both would have a change in fortune in the main event.
Brits Oliver Bennett and Kris Meeke competed in the Last Chance Qualifier, where one of the three starters would be eliminated. Meeke hit the side of Xite Energy Racing team-mate Bennett and the start and the pair headed into the ice bank. Meeke collected Conner Martell on the way. The race was red flagged and Meeke was excluded.
In the finale of the weekend, Oliver Eriksson made the best start to move around the outside of his brother and seize the lead at the long Turn 1 left-hander, while Pastrana ran third. Up front, the OMSE cars briefly changed places as the joker laps were taken, but it was Oliver who won ahead of Kevin. Series leader Robin Larsson climbed to third, while Pastrana got stuck on a snowbank, then reversed into the path of Bakkerud, who went off. The American was disqualified post-race.