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Alex Labbe ready for Riverside as NASCAR Pinty’s Series hits stretch run

Riverside International Speedway, the fast, high-banked oval track in Nova Scotia, welcomes NASCAR series for 11th consecutive season.

Alex Labbe

Alex Labbe

Paolo Pedicelli

Alex Labbé
Cayden Lapcevich
Robin Buck
Kevin Lacroix

Alex Labbe continues his quest for his first NASCAR Pinty’s Series championship this weekend at Riverside International Speedway in Antigonish, Nova Scotia on Saturday with Kevin Lacroix 23 points back.

Labbe and Lacroix have each scored three wins this season to remain either first or second throughout the majority of the season, but based on the last three races, that’s where the similarities end.

As the series entered July, Lacroix enjoyed a 13-point lead over Labbe after scoring the win in Toronto. Labee came back two races later to win in Saskatoon to pull to within two points and eventually took the lead after his win at Edmonton.

Last week at Trois-Rivières Labbe scored his ninth straight top-five finish of the season while Lacroix suffered problems during the race to finish 18th creating the current 23-point cushion for Labbe.

The Bumper-to-Bumper 300 will be the 11th consecutive Pinty’s Series race at the track and the facility is one of four tracks that has hosted the series since NASCAR began sanctioning the organization in 2007.

While Labbe is clearly one of the favorites to pick up a win, defending series champion Cayden Lapcevich has already won twice this year on ovals and sits third, 33 points out of the lead.

Lapcevich won at Riverside last year en route to becoming the youngest champion in the history of the series and will try and become the first back-to-back winner in the history of the event.

Two-time Pinty’s Series champion D.J. Kennington, who is the only driver entered that has multiple wins at Riverside and enters this race on a solid run of finishes on ovals this season.

The St. Thomas, Ontario, driver picked up his first win in 2010 and followed with a victory in the 2012 race and has averaged a third-place finish in the five oval races this season – highlighted by a pair of runner-up finishes in Saskatoon last month. Only Labbe has a better average finish on ovals. 

Veteran Mark Dilley won the inaugural NASCAR Pinty’s Series race held at Riverside in 2007 and holds the record for most top-fives (seven) and top-10 (10) finishes at the track. Dilley also is the only driver to finish in the top-10 at Riverside in every start.

The Bumper-to-Bumper will be the first of three oval track races of the final four on the 2017 schedule. The annual Labour Day weekend race along with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park will be the only road course to host an event.

Current drivers' point standings:

PositionName of driverPoints
1 Alex Labbe 385
2 Kevin Lacroix 362
3 Cayden Lapcevich 352
4 L.P. Dumoulin 348
5 D.J. Kennington 344
6 Alex Tagliani 325
7 J.F. Dumoulin 307
8 Andrew Ranger 304
9 Adam Martin (rookie)

292

10 Anthony Simone 241

 

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