Fraser McConnell secured his second top qualifier award of the season over Andreas Bakkerud in the battle bracket finals at Trois-Rivieres on Friday night.
The Jamaican driver came into this weekend with little to no experience on ice but managed to get a short testing session in Finland last week just before heading to Nitro Rallycross. McConnell made his way through the battle brackets besting XITE Energy Racing driver Kris Meeke after an issue caused him to pull off, and Oliver Eriksson who just didn’t get the launch to keep up with McConnell. Fraser leads into tomorrow with a few extra points and an easy front-row slot in the heat races.
Behind him fell Andreas Bakkerud who finished as a runner-up once the Battle Brackets had finished. The Norwegian fan favorite was able to successfully get a better launch than OMSE‘s Kevin Eriksson in his first battle bracket leading him to take the win and go on and face his teammate Robin Larsson in his second bracket. Although a very tight and close battle, Bakkerud managed to stave Larsson off and keep his position to move onto the final where he would lose out on the start to Fraser and never recover.
Robin Larsson topped the leaderboards in the final free practice netting him an easy pass into the second bracket quarter-finals. There he would first face Oliver Bennett where they would battle throughout the first banked turn with Larsson coming out on top when Bennett ran into the wall and collected damage to his car. In his second battle bracket he would fight closely with his teammate Bakkerud staying on his tail the entire race but just coming short across the line.
Vermont Sportscar’s Travis Pastrana put on quite a show in his bracket race after battling with Oliver Eriksson. The founder of NRX made an astounding pass around the outside of Eriksson and managed to take the lead at the start. From then he would drive fast and a bit risking, jumping into the snowbanks and clipping the walls but his misfortune came when he tagged a snowbank and ran the car deep into the snow turning him the wrong way allowing Eriksson to pass and eliminate him. Connor Martell was defeated by Bennet in the very first bracket race of the day ending his day early.
The final day of racing kicks off Saturday, Jan 21 with the heats and finals as Fraser McConnell and the Dreyer & Reinbold Racing drivers look to capitalize on their weekend.
