Neumann takes overall TQ at Cactus

Joern Neumann is Top Qualifier of 4WD Buggy at the Pro-Line Cactus Classic, the Team Durango driver becoming the first European to secure the honour at America’s longest running international offroad event.  The 28th running of the race, Neumann topped the final qualification ranking thanks to his two TQ runs in yesterday’s qualifying.  With only Jared Tebo able to deny the German in the final qualifier, Dakotah Phend prevented that from happening as he claimed the final qualifier ahead Tebo and Neumann.  Tebo will line up second on tomorrow’s A-Main grid with Phend third and defending Champion Ryan Maifield fourth.

Finding the starting order of the final heat a little confusing, expecting to start first as the points leader rather than his Q3 finishing position of 7th, Neumann said he was pleased with his final run and at becoming the first European to TQ in Buggy.  Planning only a new set of tyres for the finals saying his Orion powered DEX410 is working really well, he said the only thing he will do different is to scrub his Pro-Line tyres in more, feeling they were still a little too fresh for the first few laps of the final qualifying.  Asked about the racing,  the World Championship Top Qualifier said the track will make passing difficult and so his plan for the race is to just try to make no mistakes and hope those behind him do.  Having finished 3rd in 2012 and second last year, he said he hopes he can continue his upward trend and complete the full set of steps on the podium.

Suffering a roll over on his first lap through the uphill section, Tebo said he ‘lost (his) shot at the overall TQ right there’.  Apart from this he said his prototype ZX6 felt really good adding he couldn’t be happier with how it is running.  Expecting a pass will only possible if Neumann makes a mistake he said his plan for the race is to ‘stay right with him and pressure him into a mistake’.

Having secured his first buggy TQ run of the event this morning in 2WD, Phend was happy to back it up with his first 4WD TQ.  The 17-year-old said after a good start to the run he just reverted to keeping the rest of the 5-minutes free of mistakes and he was happy with how that turned out.  Planning to try a few ideas with his TLR22-4 set-up in the morning’s open practice, he said while the track is going to be hard to pass on it is inevitable that all drivers will have at least bobbles if not mistakes so its all to play for.

Chasing a fourth consecutive win in 4WD Buggy, Maifield joked ‘coming through’ when asked about his 4th place on the grid.  Commenting that the ‘track will make for interesting races’ he said any of the top half of the grid has a shot at the win.  Admitting his rivals could run at a little faster pace in qualifying, he said pushing that hard is going to be too aggressive for a final.  The Arizona ace also said today Neumann didn’t appear to be as ‘super smooth’ as he was yesterday and so he is confident the race will be wide open.

Set to start fifth on the grid Ty Tessmann said changes to his HB D4-13 made it better and ‘it was all going well until (he) crashed’.  Feeling he is ready for tomorrow’s finals, the US National Champion said mistakes will be the only way a pass is possible and his aim is to force those ahead of him into such mistakes adding hopefully he can do that without ending up hitting any of them.

4WD Buggy A-Main Grid
(11th driver to bump up from B-Main)
1. Joern Neumann – Durango – 0 pts
2. Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 2
3. Dakotah Phend – TLR – 3
4. Ryan Maifield – Associated – 5
5. Ty Tessmann – HB – 6
6. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 7
7. Billy Fischer – Associated – 10
8. Carson Wernimont – Schumacher – 13
9. Daimon Borkowicz – Associated – 15
10.Ryan Lutz – Durango – 16

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