{"id":3515,"date":"2019-03-11T14:29:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T14:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2019-03-11T21:40:11","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T21:40:11","slug":"march-meet-score-for-defending-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=3515","title":{"rendered":"March Meet Score for Defending Champ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oceanusresources.ca\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2866\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2866\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/oceanus_250x116-250x100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>The reigning series champion for the NHRA\u2019s co-production Hot Rod Heritage Series has come out of the 2019 gate swinging.<\/p>\n<p>Bobby Cottrell, driver of highly formidable Pacific NW based and Bardhal-presented Chevy Camaro owned and campaigned by Bucky Austin and Mike O\u2019Brien started off his \u201919 Championship season defence successfully by winning the 61st version March Meet held at Auto Club Famoso Raceway (just north of Bakersfield CA) yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Cottrell, who also won this race in 2018 (as well as at the 2017 CHRR event the previous fall) defeated a spirited field of cars, starting from the #3 qualified position (5.665 secs).<\/p>\n<p>He then raced his Camaro past Canada\u2019s Tim Boychuk, Steven Densham and Kris Krabill to advance to the championship round versus surprise FC class finalist &#8211; Jerry Espeseth.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3514\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?attachment_id=3514\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3514\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3514\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-3514 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Screen-Shot-2019-03-11-at-10.10.36-AM-e1552313552986.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"342\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3514\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Bobby Cottrell won for the 3X at Bakersfield)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But that \u201call California\u201d final round proved to be no contest as Cottrell won easily with a 5.718 secs at 249.03 mph while Espeseth had traction problems in the other lane.<\/p>\n<p>The incident filled, marquee \u201cMarch Meet\u201d event did attract 19 cars for competition and produced a 16-car bump spot at 5.889 secs.<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s top class qualifier was Ryan Hodgson in the Edmonton-based Pacemaker Funny Car which qualified 4th at 5.702 secs however Ryan (the 2017 Hot Rod Heritage Series Champion) was upset by Espeseth in round one &#8211; 5.747 secs to 5.774 secs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Posted by Bruce Biegler<\/em><br \/>\n<em>DragRaceCanada File photo by Randy Anderson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The reigning series champion for the NHRA\u2019s co-production Hot Rod Heritage Series has come out of the 2019 gate swinging. Bobby Cottrell, driver of highly formidable Pacific NW based and Bardhal-presented Chevy Camaro owned and campaigned by Bucky Austin and Mike O\u2019Brien started off his \u201919 Championship season defence successfully by winning the 61st version [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[70,35,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3524,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/3524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}