Nitro Rallycross Race Preview: Trois-Rivieres
It’s been a few years since the sport of rallycross has hit Canada, but Nitro Rallycross is finally bringing it back this Friday and Saturday with a visit to Trois-Rivieres as part of the legendary GP3R. What’s more, after years of rumors, NRX and its bespoke Group E class will be delivering ice racing to North American audiences for the first time, after years of successful rounds of RallyX on Ice put on in Scandinavia by Olsbergs MSE, builders of NRX’s FC1-X car.
GP3R was a part of the FIA World Rallycross calendar for six years from 2014 to 2019, where it traditionally ran on the first weekend of August. In 2017, Red Bull Global Rallycross also paid a visit to Canada with a doubleheader round in Ottawa, where Steve Arpin and Tanner Foust split the victories. Following GRC’s demise, Americas Rallycross joined the World RX bill at GP3R for two years, where Scott Speed and Foust won the two Supercar features.
They’re not the three former GP3R winners on the Group E entry list, though. That honor belongs to Andreas Bakkerud, winner of the final World RX event here in 2019, and Conner Martell and Fraser McConnell, who swept the ARX2 doubleheaders here in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Of course, past experience won’t be worth much more than some familiarity in the paddock—not only is the racing surface going to be different, but the layout is as well. The track will be contained entirely within the Hippodrome, the city’s horse racing track, which had only constituted part of the layout for World RX and ARX.
Only series founder Travis Pastrana and incoming points leader Robin Larsson have managed to score multiple wins on the season, with each scoring their second in the previous doubleheader event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Arizona. Larsson and his Dreyer & Reinbold Racing teammates Bakkerud and McConnell are in the top three spots in points, with Bakkerud 45 points out of the lead and McConnell 66 back. OMSE’s Oliver Eriksson is fourth, 15 points clear of Pastrana, who rounds out the top five. In the first race since the passing of Ken Block, Pastrana will be an emotional favorite to take win number three, as his Vermont SportsCar FC1-X (pictured above) will carry Block’s snow camouflage livery from 2005, the very start of his rallying career with the same team.
As always, NRX will bring multiple classes of action to GP3R, and the NRX NEXT and side-by-side divisions have seen plenty of excitement so far this season. George Megennis leads the NEXT class by 26 points over Casper Jansson and Jimmy Henderson, while Canadian Gregoire Michaud had a healthy lead over Ben Maier in SXS thanks to a win and six podiums in six races.
Live coverage of Nitro Rallycross action from GP3R is scheduled for 5PM ET on Friday and Saturday on Peacock. Following Trois-Rivieres, the series remains in Canada for a round at Stampede Park in Calgary on February 4-5, before heading back to Glen Helen Raceway outside of Los Angeles for a doubleheader finale on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.
Image via Vermont SportsCar