McCONNELL GETS HIS MOJO BACK IN LOS ANGELES
Just a round following the most dramatic incident of his life, Jamaican driver Fraser McConnell claimed a maiden Nitro Rallycross Championship career win in the fourth round of the series at Glen Helen in Los Angeles.
McConnell had been one of two drivers to suffer huge practice incidents in the previous round at the
ERX Motorsports Park in Minneapolis but, at that event, he had finished on the podium, by virtue of switching to a different car.
Driving a different chassis again, the one raced to a podium finish in the second round at Strangnas, Sweden, earlier in the year by Johan Kristoffersson, McConnell won the battle bracket encounter on Saturday, then his heat race on Sunday from the front of the grid to secure himself a place in the final.
In the main event, the
DRR JC driver fended off the close attentions of series leader Robin Larsson in the opening corner and was then never headed en route to a maiden win.
Larsson took his compulsory joker lap on the second tour and returned to the main route ahead of early joker-taker Kevin Eriksson, before closing the margin on RX Cartel team-mate Andreas Bakkerud.
The second of the drivers to have suffered the big incident in the previous round, Bakkerud ultimately lost out to Larsson, but returned to the podium in third.
British driver Oliver Bennett claimed a career-best result with fourth, but his team-mate Jenson Button pulled out after the opening practice session of the weekend.
A statement from the
Xite Energy Racing team read: “Unfortunately, Jenson had a turbulent first practice which resulted in extensive damage to the car. Because of this, Jenson was unable to go out for a further practice on Friday. Both Jenson and the team decided that it was unrealistic and unfair to ask Jenson to drive today [Saturday]. Unlike most of the other drivers, Jenson has no prior experience with the magnitude of gap jumps that are present at this track. Without extra seat time and practice, it would have been unwise to continue. Jenson is genuinely very disappointed not to be racing following his good first event in Minneapolis.”
Results
Organiser: Nitro RX When: October 29-30 Where: Glen Helen, USA Starters: 23 Round 4: Group E (All FC1-X): 1 Fraser McConnell 4m54.667s; 2 Robin Larsson +0.737s; 3 Andreas Bakkerud; 4 Oliver Bennett; 5 Kevin Eriksson; 6 Oliver
Eriksson; NRX Next America R1: George Megenis (Supercar Lites); NRX NEXT America R2: Casper Jansson (Supercar Lites); SXS R3: Brian Deegan (CanAm); SXS R4: Travis Pastrana (CanAm)