Drake Truggy Top Qualifier at Dirt Nitro Challenge

Adam Drake is the Top Qualifier for Truggy at the Dirt Nitro Challenge, the Team Losi Racing driver wrapping up the honour early by backing up his opening qualifying run at the Fear Farm with another TQ run in Q2, this time ahead of Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz and his TLR team-mate Mike Truhe.

Drake said his 8ight T was very easy to drive and the run was near perfect except for a ‘bad mistake’ on his last lap. With the tune of his Novarossi too lean when he got his approach to one of the jumps wrong he was forced to throttle up but the engine died off resulting in him getting the next two jumps wrong. Able to keep the engine running he would recover from the incident and such was his pace despite losing so much time Drake was still able to post a TQ time that would stand to the end of the round. Very happy with the set-up on his truggy with overall TQ honours wrapped up, 2 from 3 rounds to count, he will use his final heat to practice running on a bigger pin tyre, switching from Proline’s Holeshot to their Blockade. While he expects the track to be very different by the time the finals come round he said the comparison would be helpful ahead of tomorrow’s buggy qualifying.

Not happy with his truggy on the landing in Q1, when Lutz went to change his shock oil for Q2 he discovered his pistons were mounted the wrong way round. With the shocks correctly built he said his Durango was much better for the second run but a back marker would result in him losing 6 seconds. Coming up to pass the slower truggy the driver stopped on the track in front of him sending Lutz onto his roof and needing to be marshaled. Based on the number of drivers having problems with traffic, having to pull over all the time not being much fun for the slower drivers either, the introduction of seeding for the heats should be given consideration for furture Dirt Nitro Challenge events.

Having over driven his TOP engined 8ight T in Q1, Truhe said he was a lot more patient second time round and aiming for a Top 5 finish this approach paid off. Having TQ’d the opening round of 1:8 Electric Buggy which brought the first long round of qualifying at the Dirt Nitro Challenge to an end he just carried that driving style forward to his Q2 truggy run adding he feels he is ‘back to his old ways’ again. Running Proline M3 Holeshots he said he hasn’t changed anything on his truggy since arriving for the race and the plan for Q3 to again just go for a solid run only this time trying to elimate the one small mistake that he had in Q2.

A-Main Hobbies team-driver Austin Blair backed up his Q1 performance this time setting the fourth fastest time despite losing 6 seconds on his last lap. The Californian said the run was perfect but so happy to make 12 laps he got a bit over excited resulting in the costly mistake which robbed him of a potential TQ of the round.

While Blair is very happy with how his day is going, Kyosho’s star driver Jared Tebo is clearly unhappy with his results so far. Having had two coming’s together with Ryan Cavalieri in Q1 leaving him to finish 7th fastest, a frustrated Tebo could only manage 5th fastest ahead of the Associated driver who fell foul of traffic having lead the heat for 8 laps.

Making his US race debut, Australia’s Kyle McBride set the 7th fastest time ahead of Kyosho team-mate Cody King. Having suffered a bent shock shaft in Q1 when he was hit by another truggy during the warm-up, the 17-year-old said the second round was ‘OK’, his OS Speed engine set a little too rich for the much cooler conditions. Feeling his truggy was a little soft on the front end, the FEMCA Champion will switch to a heavier oil for the final qualifier. With the grip coming up he will also add more camber and switch to a heavier clutch to get more punch for the jumps. Unfortunately for team-mate and fellow US race debutant the second qualifier was a non starter for Elliot Boots after he got it wrong at the triple resulting in the pin coming out of the front wishbone forcing him to retire before the start.

Completing the Top 10 in Q2 was TLR’s Billy Fischer and defending Champion Ty Tessmann. The HB driver, who was second fastest in Q1, had his run destroyed when he was t-boned by Xray’s Juraj Hudy and needed to be marshalled.

Truggy Qualifying Round 2
1. Adam Drake – TLR/Novarossi – 12/7:28.637
2. Ryan Lutz – Durango/Alpha – 12/7:32.186
3. Mike Truhe – TLR/TOP – 12/7:33.643
4. Austin Blair – Kyosho/RB – 12/7:34.964
5. Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion – 12/7:34.989
6. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated/Orion – 12/7:36.562
7. Kyle McBride – Kyosho/OS Speed – 12/7:36.802
8. Cody King – Kyosho/Reds – 12/7:40.431
9. Billy Fischer – TLR/Novarossi – 11/7:00.010
10.Ty Tessmann – HB/OS Speed – 11/7:00.509

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