Larsen tops opening 2WD Buggy qualifier in Omaha
Team Losi Racing’s Taylor Larsen TQ’d the opening round of 2WD Buggy qualifying at the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals in Omaha, setting the fastest and only 14-lap run around the HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex track in front of team-mate JR Mitch. Once again it was not a good round for the series main contenders with Dustin Evans only able for fourth, Steven Hartson seventh and Ryan Maifield not even making the Top 10.
‘Great’ was how Larsen summed up his run, the 15-year-old ‘really happy’ with the performance of his TLR22 which he said coped really well with the track which has started to get very bumpy. Having added weight to the car for the final round of practice last night, he said this helped the car absorb the bumps but he said the key things was avoiding mistakes. Having watched many drivers ‘wreck’ he said his focus for the run was to just put in a clean rather than super fast 5-minutes and that approach would pay dividends. Running a mixture of tyres with Gold compound JConcepts Barcodes on the front and Black on the rear he will continue with that for Q2 adding that the Golds give him very consistent steering.
Backing up his 4WD Buggy run, in which he also took second, JR Mitch said his TLR22 was ‘really neutral’ in its set-up but this allowed him to put it in the same spot of the track lap after lap. Admitting it is not the fastest car out there he said he was able to steer it to a clean run and he is happy to take the end result. Planning to ‘stick to (that) programme’, for Q2 he will try running a set of Green compound JConcepts Barcodes on the rear of his buggy that have a lower pin height.
Driving a mid motored C4.2, Kyle Skidmore would complete the Top 3 for the opening qualifier. From Oklahoma City, he said he ‘got lucky’ but only his fifth time to run the car he said he was pleased with his own performance. A clean round with just a few bobbles over the 5-minutes, he plans to make a few small set-up changes to a little more rear side bit. Running Proline M4 ION tyres all round he said he said they worked well and he will run them again for his next run.
Posting the fourth fastest time, over 5-seconds off team-mate Larsen, Evans said he had work to do on getting his TLR somewhere nearer to what he would like. The winner of the ‘Fall’ round of the series, he said he doesn’t know what to do to get the car to work on a track surface that is leaving a number of the top drivers scratching their heads. Evans said getting the combination of tyre compound and then pin height is a real challenge adding that maybe a rear motor configuration might be better.
Completing the Top 6, behind Store Manager & the man who built the track for the event Alex Sturgeon, was up & coming Arizona talent Spencer Rivkin. The protege of Ryan Maifield was happy with his run having come back from what was a less than perfect number of laps halfway through the run. Making a couple of mistakes, the 15-year-old said he had to settle himself down and get back into his rhythm. Running Black compound V1 Barcodes all round on his C4.2, he said he plans to leave everything as is for Q2.
Maifield describing his run as ‘hurting’ emphasizing how hurting it was by starting the comment with the use of some french. The Arizona ace said the ‘Driver was bad and the car was bad’ adding he needs to find a better tyre combination for Q2. His team manager Brent Theilke didn’t fair out much better also finishing outside the Top 10 after a run that contained ‘way too many crashes’.
Setting the seventh fastest time Hartson said his run was too inconsistent leading to a few crashes. Happy that his Reedy powered C4.2 is good he will try running tyres with less thread for Q2.
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