2023-24 Season Gets Underway in Oklahoma
Nitrocross kicked off its 2023-24 season at Visions Off-Road Festival last weekend with two action-packed days of racing on an all-new, purpose-built course at Mid America outdoors in Oklahoma.
Dreyer & Reinbold JC driver Fraser McConnell was the victor, taking a second career win after resisting a brief, but strong challenge from Kris Meeke in the final.
Ahead of racing, 2021 series champion Travis Pastrana topped the new single-lap qualifying session with Kevin Eriksson, McConnell, and Andreas Bakkerud sharing the opening heat wins in the Battle Bracket. The trio then faced off in the Battle final, with Eriksson winning in spite of a late race puncture.
All three got a bye through the preliminary round of racing on Sunday, with Vermont SportsCar duo Conner Martell and Pastrana, as well as reigning series champion Robin Larsson taking the prelim wins.
With the full field back for the Heat round, Bakkerud and McConnell continued to show their hand with wins, with Larsson also victorious. The final spots for the main event were decided with a pair of attritional LCQs, Martell and Meeke winning those, with Kevin Eriksson and Pastrana also advancing despite colliding on the opening lap of their LCQ – Pastrana rolling and Eriksson losing a wheel. Oliver Bennett meanwhile missed out on a tiebreaker based on qualifying performance.
In the final, McConnell quickly disposed of Larsson, arguably his biggest threat to victory, by forcing him wide at the first turn. That move opened the door for Meeke to sneak through into second, despite having started on the second row of the grid.
With joker strategies between McConnell and Meeke settled after the first two laps, the pair engaged in a tense duel for victory, albeit one that would be over in less then a lap as contact between the pair resulted in suspension damage for Meeke.
That allowed Larsson to take second behind McConnell, with Kevin Eriksson taking third, Martell fourth, and Pastrana fifth. Meeke wrestled his car home sixth, ahead of Bakkerud with whom he made contact on the final lap, with Conor Daly rounding out the final finishers after an impressive display to get into the main event on his Nitrocross debut.