ARX
09 Jun 2019
Credit: ARX Rallycross
Tanner Foust leads qualifying for the 2019 Americas Rallycross season opener at Mid-Ohio after the first day of running.
The Andretti Rallycross driver finished his opening heat second to former team mate Scott Speed, before making the most of a restart to beat Speed’s Subaru team mate Chris Atkinson in their second round heat.
Speed took a dominant win in the first race of Q1, but in Q2 was caught up in a turn one skirmish with Foust and Steve Arpin. Speed and Foust squeezed the Ford driver, but it was four-time champion Speed who came off worst, losing both of his rear wheels in the incident. Nevertheless, Speed’s strong Q1 showing means that he still ended the day second in the overall standings despite the DNF.
Atkinson holds the third place spot after a brace of second places in his heats. He followed Arpin home in Q1 after a race-long battle with fellow Subaru driver Patrik Sandell, then was narrowly defeated by Foust in Q2, both on-track and in the times.
Arpin’s heat win in Q1 – which was good for second in the overall standings of that round – and third-place finish in the rerun second race of Q2 means that he holds fourth position, on the same number of points as Atkinson, while Arpin’s Loenbro Motorsports team mate Travis PeCoy rounds out the top-five, despite being hit with a 10-second penalty after Q1 for missing the jump.
Cabot Bigham and Patrik Sandell current occupy sixth and seventh spots respectively. Bigham had a fairly quiet run in Q1, while Sandell fought Atkinson on track, then both drivers came together in Q2 while fighting over the same bit of road while going into the first corner.
Sandell hit the tyre barrier and retired, while Bigham continued but spun again and eventually finished over eight seconds adrift of heat winner PeCoy.
Scott Speed showed strong pace on his first day as a Subaru driver – Credit: ARX Rallycross
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | QP | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Tanner Foust | 42 | 50 | 92 | |||
| 2. | Scott Speed | 50 | 36 | 86 | |||
| 3. | Chris Atkinson | 40 | 45 | 85 | |||
| 4. | Steve Arpin | 45 | 40 | 85 | |||
| 5. | Travis PeCoy | 37 | 42 | 79 | |||
| 6. | Cabot Bigham | 38 | 39 | 77 | |||
| 7. | Patrik Sandell | 39 | 36 | 75 |
In the support categories, Alex Keyes win the opening round of the ARX2 season, beating IndyCar regular Sage Karam and newcomer Brad DeBerti. J.R. Hildebrand finished fourth, two seconds off the final podium spot, while Cole Keatts came home fifth.
Fraser McConnell was the only retirement from the first ARX2 final of the season. The highly-rated Jamaican was the top qualifier and made a good start in the final but hit a tyre bale mid-way through the race which broke his steering.
In ARX3, seasoned US rally competitor John McInnes took the inaugural win in the class, beating Jim Jonsin and Dave Wallingford.
