It had been a long two years away from Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières for Alex Tagliani.

The two-time winner at GP3R entered Sunday’s Guardian Angels 60 with high hopes given his history at the venue, especially after the series’ absence last year due to COVID-19. And he delivered.

The driver of the No. 18 RONA/Viagara/St-Hubert Chevrolet took the lead on Lap 18 and never looked back. He only relinquished the top spot once after a Lap 30 restart before regaining it and earning his tenth career NASCAR Pinty’s Series victory.

It wasn’t all easy for Tagliani, though. He had to survive a restart with four laps remaining and a hard charge from Kevin Lacroix to secure the checkered flag but wound up over 1.2 seconds ahead of the No. 74 when it was all said and done.

Lacroix and L.P. Dumoulin made contact down the stretch battling for a top-five spot, allowing J.F. Dumoulin to scoot by and finish second. Lacroix came home third with Treyten Lapcevich fourth and the former Dumoulin fifth.

D.J. Kennington, Simon Dion-Viens, L.P. Montour, Luc Lesage and Dexter Stacey rounded out the top 10 finishers on the 1.53-mile street course.

Andrew Ranger, who entered the race with the most starts in the field at GP3R (13) and wins (four) was relegated to a 19th-place finish after brake issues plagued his No. 51 Rick Ware Racing machine. Raphael Lessard, who swept the two opening races at Sunset Speedway, finished 14th, nine laps down.

After qualifying second, Marc-Antione Camirand finished in last after a transmission issue only saw him complete nine laps while Kyle Marcelli finished 15th in his series debut.

RACE RESULTS

The Guardian Angels 60 will air on TSN on Sunday, Aug. 22, at 1:00 p.m. ET. Fans in the United States can stream races after they air on TrackPass on NBC Sports Gold.

Next up for the NASCAR Pinty’s Series will head to Circuit ICAR for the Lafluer 75 on Saturday, August 28.