Maifield & Neumann double up in Round 2
Bringing Day 2 of racing at the 21st running of the Reedy Race of Champions to a close, Round 2 of 4WD netted double wins for Ryan Maifield and Joern Neumann with Jared Tebo, points table leader at the end of 2WD, claiming his first 4WD win. A round that saw all three drivers take straight forward wins, the biggest drama was for Steven Hartson, the World Champion suffering a DNF having started out his preferred class with only a fourth from a front row start in Round 1. The round would also see Cavalieri lose ground to now points leader Maifield as he took third in his race behind Neumann and Travis Amezcua. The result also sees Neumann go ahead of Cavalieri in the points table.
Opening the round was Neumann’s race with Travis ‘Peanut’ Amezcua starting on the pole. Keeping his Durango out front for nine laps Amezcua would eventually relinquish the lead to his former team-mate Neumann, who started 4th, with the German going on to win by 3.3 seconds. Behind the two Durangos, the battle for third would be fought out between Associated team-mates Cavalieri and Carson Wernimont. Starting 7th on the grid, Cavalieri found himself 9th after lap 1 but working his way back to the front his progress would end when he ran with Wernimont as the two battled it out. Setting the fastest lap of the race new team recruit Wernimont challenged his senior team-mate hard until an error on the last lap. Also making a last lap mistake, Amezcua almost handed away his equal best finishing position of the event crossing the line just 0.6 of a second in front of Cavalieri.
Race 2 would have Hupo Honigl on pole, the race marking the Austrian’s debut for Serpent although in 4WD he is running a Durango here as he waits on their soon to be released 4WD chassis which Easton is running in the event. Pulling an early lead, once Maifield got passed Joona Haatanen, the American star expressing to AE team-manager Brent Theilke after the race that he was impressed by the Associated supported 11-year-old Finn, that lead would quickly diminish. Going to the front on lap 11, the TLR driver would pull clear to win by 2.7 seconds with Honigl in turn finishing 1.4 up on Haatanen with Dustin Evans coming through from 10th to claim a fourth.
The closing race would turn out to be a very easy win for Tebo. Lining up on pole position, the Kyosho driver, even with only the fifth fastest lap time of the race, cruised to a 7.2 seconds win over Associated’s Spencer Rivkin with Ty Tessmann completing the Top 3.
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