On-track action got underway early Saturday morning on the streets of Trois-Rivières, as the NASCAR Canada Series took to the historic street circuit for its first session of the weekend.
Andrew Ranger behind the No. 27 GM Paillé/Chevrolet Canada Chevrolet, Marc-Antoine Camirand in the No.96 GM Paillé/Chevrolet Canada Chevrolet, Kevin Lacroix in the No. 74 NAPA Gold Filters Chevrolet and the Dumoulin brother, Jean-François Dumoulin behind the No. 04 Omnifab/Bellemare/Bernier Crepeau Dodge and Louis-Philippe Dumoulin in the No. 47 WeatherTech/Bellemare/Omnifab Dodge quickly established themselves near the top of the timing. Benoît Couture, in the No. 50 French CanCan Popcorn/Excellence Dodge Dodge, brought out the caution before the session was red-flagged to allow track crews to clean up fluids on the racing surface.
Once the session resumed, Alex Labbé in the No. 36 Groupe Boissonneault/FlorDeco/GBI Chevrolet then moved to the top of the leaderboard before another full-course caution was caused by the No. 8 Piscine Fibro/Festival Volaria Chevrolet of Justin Arseneau.
The session was interrupted once again when the No. 24 Black’s Underwear/Cathcart Trucking/BCR Ford of Jared Odrick brought out another full-course caution. The field returned to green with eight minutes remaining, giving drivers one final opportunity to improve their lap times.
Ultimately, Alex Labbé held on to the top spot to lead the practice session with a best lap of 1:08.196, ahead of Marc-Antoine Camirand in second and Andrew Ranger in third. Louis-Philippe Dumoulin and Jean-François Dumoulin completed the top five.
Next up is Qualifying at 12:00 p.m. ET, before the Omnifab Sprints get underway later this afternoon. Sprint 1 is scheduled for 4:40 p.m. ET, followed by Sprint 2 at 5:20 p.m. ET. The weekend concludes Sunday with the 45 Tours CarGurus at 2:10 p.m. ET.