But now, we learned in the middle of the week that Alex Labbé and Raphaël Lessard, in addition, were going to race as a sportsman in order to qualify for the Urban Challenge of the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières. Labbé will race in the second car of Donovan Lussier while Lessard will be at the wheel of a car owned by the Bernier brothers.
“I’m going there to have fun, to have fun,” says Labbé, partner of Dominic Lussier within the LL Motorsport team in the NASCAR Canada series. It will be my first time in Granby, I can’t wait!”
Last year, Labbé ran once on clay. And at RPM Speedway, in his first career start on dirt, he won!
“Honestly, I surprised myself! I had had fun. Land is something else, it’s a specialty. But it’s still a driver and a car.”
Labbé during the last Chevrolet Urban Challenge last summer at the Trois-Rivières Grand Prix. (Olivier Croteau/Archives Le Nouvelliste)
Between Canada and the United States
Alex Labbé will run here and there this season. So far, he has taken part in the first two events of the NASCAR Canada Series as well as two races in the Xfinity Series.
“After the event at Autodrome Chaudière, we wondered if we weren’t changing our game plan, which was to participate in eight of the 13 races in the Canadian series. Maybe if I had finished in the top 5 at Vallée-Jonction (he had to retire), it would have been tempting, but we decided to stick with the original game plan. But it’s okay, I’m not disappointed.”
“I’m on my own to prepare the car, it’s a lot of work and this season is a bit about preparing for what’s next, to see what exactly we need to do a full season.”
— Alex Labbe
So he won’t be in Newfoundland in a week. He will join the set in Nova Scotia the following weekend, when we will present a double bill there.
On the Sonoma road course last weekend, he finished 19th after flirting with the top 10 with less than 10 laps to go. This time, it was the suspension that caused him misery.
“It’s frustrating because before the last restart, I had achieved my best lap. I had a good car, I was fast, we could hope for a very good result. But as I always say: that’s what racing is all about.”
He is scheduled to take part in his next Xfinity Series event in early July, on the streets of Chicago.
In the meantime, it’s on clay that it’s happening on Friday evening.
NOTES: despite the postponement of the Canadian large bouldering series event to this week, Carey Terrance and Brianna Ladouceur are still expected in Granby on Friday… Latest news, David Hébert, Steve Bernard, Mathieu Desjardins, Félix and Jérémy Roy, Simon Perreault and François Bellemare as well as Jean Boissonneault, who is making a comeback, also had to always race with a big block engine.
