PASTRANA TURNS IT ON FOR THE HOME FANS
Having struggled in the opening two rounds of the Nitro Rallycross season at Lydden Hill and in Sweden, reigning champion Travis Pastrana promised to return the stars and stripes to the top step of the podium at the ERX Motor Park in Minnesota, and he did just that.
Despite not making it to the final stages of the qualifying battle day on Saturday, Pastrana won the heat encounter to book himself a frontrow start for the final, meaning he could skip the semi-final and Last Chance Qualifying.
Saturday’s Top Qualifier Robin Larsson also won his heat to progress directly to the main event, but all eyes were on the pair that finished second in their heat races.
While Kevin Eriksson rolled on Sunday morning, which put him out, DRR JC-run pair Andreas Bakkerud and Fraser McConnell both had nearidentical huge accidents in Saturday morning timed practice.
The incidents happened at the same place on the track and within seconds of each other, and McConnell’s FC1-X just missed Bakkerud’s stationary car as it cartwheeled over the circuit perimeter and into a lake.
Both drivers were taken to hospital as a precaution but soon returned to the venue, while the team set about repairing the cars.
In an all-night effort, one that included stripping the rollcage from a spare car in the paddock and fitting it to Bakkerud’s space-frame machine, both returned on Sunday.
Both drivers made it through to the final with strong performances in the semis, McConnell taking a semi-final win, and ultimately finished third and fourth. While Pastrana made the best start in the final and led from the front, series leader Larsson challenged early on then elected to protect a strong points haul to drove for second.
McConnell had a relatively lonely run to third while, behind, Bakkerud dropped into the pack following his joker, but battled his way back to fourth. Making his first-ever Nitro RX final, British driver Oliver Bennett delivered a career-best drive to finish fifth, having made it to the final via beating new team-mate Jenson Button for the last qualifying spot in the LCQ, then held off local hero Andrew Carlson for fifth in the main event.
In the NRX NEXT Supercar Lites support category, SET Promotion driver Tommi Hallman won on both days to wrap up the NRX NEXT Europe title in style.
Results
Organiser: Nitro RX When: October 1-2 Where: ERX Motor Park, USA Starters: 25
Round 3: Group E (All FC1-X): 1 Travis Pastrana 5m23.778s; 2 Robin Larsson +3.793s; 3 Fraser McConnell +5.123s; 4 Andreas Bakkerud; 5 Oliver Bennett; 6 Andrew Carlson; 7 Conner Martell; 8 Oliver Eriksson. NRX Next Europe R5: Tommi Hallman (Supercar Lites). NRX NEXT Europe R6:
Tommi Hallman (Supercar Lites); SXS R1: Brian Deegan (CanAm); SXS R2: Travis Pastrana (CanAm)