Tebo wins A1
Jared Tebo has won the opening A-Main at the 1:10 2WD Offroad World Championships in Japan. The Top Qualifier would end up taking a comfortable win surviving a mistake and a challenge from star of the event Spencer Rivkin. The young Associated driver found himself twice locking wheels with his team-mates first with Neil Cragg early on, ending the former Champions challenge, and later with Ryan Cavalieri. Despite the contact Cavalieri would see off the challenge of Ryan Maifield to complete the Top 3 behind Tebo and Rivkin. Starting from 2nd Cragg would finish 6th.
Getting it wrong at the rhythm section in front of the drivers stand, just as he looked to have broken away from the pursuing Associated’s, Tebo said ‘I was a little nervous and that front section nearly cost me but I pulled it back’. The defending champion said he needs to be more on the throttle for the final jump of the section and it shouldn’t be an issue again in A2. Asked if he was surprised by the pace of Rivkin, who caught him and made a serious attempt to get passed before having a roll over coming onto the main straight, the American shook his head and said ‘No, Spencer has been fast all week’. Asked about A2 he replied ‘my car felt great and I’ve just got to drive it’.
With much more of a game face on than in qualifying, Spencer described his first ever Worlds final as having went ‘pretty good’. The 16-year-old who has been Mr. Consistency here at the Yatabe Arena said, ‘I made a bobble that i shouldn’t have’ referring to his error when setting up Tebo for a pass adding ‘I was pushing a little too hard’. Avoiding the point of his contact with Cavalieri, both pitting side by side, he said ‘I know I can race with them so for the next one I am going to just follow Neil and see what happens’. Asked about his second lap clash with Rivkin, Cragg said ‘I ran wide and tried to close but (Rivkin) was already there. No fowl’. Trying to recover position the British driver said he tried too hard leading to further mistakes.
Cavalieri summed up A1 by saying it was ‘really close’ adding after ‘a clean start’ he was able to work his way up to the lead battle until ‘we gave Jared a breather when myself and Spencer got together’. Not initially pointing the figure when asked about his subsequent battle with Maifield he said ‘(Ryan) snuck up behind me when I got taken out’. With Maifield getting by him he said he got back by his former team-mate with a lucky pass at the end of the main straight adding his car was placed just perfectly to and he ‘threw it in and got a clean pass’.
Coming from seventh on the grid Maifield said ‘that wasn’t bad, obviously I wanted more but to get in the battle for second was good’. Having ‘made a pretty big gain since qualifying’, the TLR driver said the TLR22 Development Car is pretty competitive now and considering they came here having never driven it he is satisfied with with 4th from 7th on the grid. Looking to A2, the Arizona driver said his aim is for an overall Top 5 finisher or higher but said the nature of the track means you can’t pass and he’s got to be patient and wait for others to make mistakes.
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