There’s a little bit of a theme in Nitrocross. Olsbergs MSE’s Oliver Eriksson enters the season with a truckload of promise, but it’s not until later in the season where he delivers on that promise and gets a win on the board.
We’re only one weekend, two races down, and the younger Eriksson brother is already a winner – oh, and the points leader.
Eriksson’s Sunday win came after a first lap clash for much of the field. Fraser McConnell suffered a half-spin after a tap from Eriksson, opening the door for the Swede to sneak by while the rest of the field concertinaed up behind. It proved to be a gratuitous advantage for Eriksson, who had points on his mind, but not necessarily the overall win.
“The start was… turn three was horrible. We got off Turns 1 and 2 clean, I was on Fraser’s bumper, as I planned, trying to score points, you know, and not causing the damage to the car,” he said. “But we entered Turn 3, and I don't know what was going on behind, but all of a sudden I got a big hit in the back and straight into Frazzz. He spun out, I got by him there.
“I don't want to hit Frazzz or win that way any at all. He was the collateral damage, and I got by.”
Nevertheless, it’s a huge boost for Eriksson and the Olsbergs team, whose traditional early season struggles still reared their ugly head with Kevin Eriksson exiting the weekend early through injury and Tanner Foust struggling on-track throughout the event.
“It's good for our team. We (usually) start off bad, and to get this start now, being on top of it is really good,” said Eriksson. “It's good, all the points we can get are good. Every weekend we can perform like this, we take. It’s a good start.”
But while the younger of the two Eriksson’s holds an 11-point advantage at the moment, he’s under no illusion as to the size of the battle he has on his hands, with serial race winner McConnell and reigning two-time champion Robin Larsson breathing down his neck.
“It's all so tight in the Group E class,” he pointed out. “The Dreyer cars probably won't back down one inch the next coming weekend.
“We’ve just got to stay aggressive, but smart, and try to score as many points as we can,. It’s very important to be up front on the grid in the final, so we try our best in the heats and qualifiers to climb as high as we can, to get us in a good position for when it matters. That's all we can do.”
Next up is Utah Motorsports Campus, the birthplace of Nitrocross. Wide and fast, it’s the polar opposite of the compact Richmond track, and it’s one that Eriksson can’t wait to get back to.
“Utah is always a blast, we love that place,” he beamed. “It’s a great, big open circuit, we always have super racing there, so we're just stoked to go there and hopefully put on a show.”