Tanner Foust and Fraser McConnell Victorious in Trois-Rivieres
Tanner Foust and Fraser McConnell Victorious in Trois-Rivieres
Story By: Parker Smith/ARX
TROIS-RIVIERES, Quebec, Can. (August 4, 2019) – Andretti Rallycross’ Tanner Foust and Cabot Bigham captured a thrilling one-two finish in the ARX of Canada, Round 4 of the 2019 ARX Supercar Championship.
Foust became the fourth different winner in four rounds this season at the famous Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres venue by claiming the hole-shot from the outside of the three-wide front row of the grid in the final.
In the No. 34 Rockstar Energy Andretti Volkswagen Beetle R, Foust led the final for all the laps bar one in the six-lap race, only overtaken by championship leader, Subaru Motorsport USA’s Scott Speed when Foust took an earlier joker lap to fend off his teammate, Bigham, who took the victory in semi-final one, the first race win of his ARX Supercar career.
Click the image above to watch the digital broadcast replay of the ARX of Canada Finals
Speed suffered a gearbox issue while leading the second semi-final, surrendering the victory and a front-row start to Loenbro Motorsports’ Steve Arpin. In the final, Arpin made the strongest launch to grab the initial advantage, but out-braked himself into the first turn and dropped to seventh in what was the first-ever seven-car ARX final.
The Subaru team put in an incredible effort to fix Speed’s Subaru WRX STI in record time before the final and the 2018 ARX of Canada winner immediately got to work at the start and climbed to third on the first lap. He eventually led the race when Foust and Bigham took their joker laps but dropped back to third after his own joker on Lap 6, as Foust eventually claimed a dramatic win.
Round 2 winner Chris Atkinson finished fourth in his Subaru WRX STI after battling with Arpin in the final. Arpin’s Loenbro Motorsports’ teammate Travis PeCoy starred once again this weekend with tough overtakes to get by Foust and Speed in the second round of qualifying on Saturday and took the overnight lead in the Intermediate Classification. On Sunday, he battled with fellow rookie, Bigham, in Qualifying 4. However, a slow start in the first semi-final meant he started on the outside of the third row in the final and ended up finishing fifth, one place ahead of Arpin.
Round 3 winner from the ARX of Gateway, Patrik Sandell, set the pace in Qualifying 1 and 3 in the No. 18 WRX STI and took the top-qualifier (TQ) position at the end of qualifying on Sunday. In the opening semi-final, the Swedish veteran was overtaken by Bigham in turn two and then crashed out of the final after contact with PeCoy at the end of Lap 1.
With two rounds remaining at the Circuit of The Americas and Mid-Ohio Sports Course, Speed leads the standings by five points over his former teammate, Foust, and 14 points ahead of Sandell.
Click the photo above to access the full weekend photo gallery.
ARX2 Championship leader Fraser McConnell took a pair of wins in the official single-specification ARX support category after a weekend-long battle with reigning ARX2 Champion Conner Martell, who himself took a pair of wins at the ARX of Gateway in Rounds 3 and 4.
In Rounds 5 and 6 on the historic Trois-Rivieres street circuit, it was all about DirtFish Motorsports’ McConnell holding off intense pressure from Dreyer and Reinbold Racing’s Martell to increase his championship points lead. Martell took the top-qualifier (TQ) position after a qualifying sweep in Round 6, but McConnell launched the quickest off the line to begin the final and responded well to Martell’s fourth-lap joker to hold on to win his second race in as many days.
Martell finished second in both rounds, with DRR’s Cole Keatts finishing third twice as well. Gray Leadbetter completed the best rallycross weekend in her young career in the No. 28 Oil2Soil machine, winning her first qualifying race on Sunday in Qualifying 2 and finishing the finals with two fourth-place finishes. Loenbro Motorsports’ Michael Leach and debut rallycross driver Lane Vacala finished fifth and sixth in both finals, respectively.
ARX and ARX2 coverage from the ARX of Canada will be shown on Wednesday, August 7 at 8:00 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network. The championship battles are heating up in both premiere rallycross categories, as the teams and drivers focus on the ARX of Austin on September 28 and the championship weekend Cooper Tires ARX of Mid-Ohio, October 5-6 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
