Evans doubles up in Round 2
Dustin Evans made it two from two at the Reedy Race of Champions, the former champion winning his second 2WD encounter from reigning champion Ryan Maifield. Again a stacked race, Evans who started from 3rd on the grid would do just as he did in his opening race and go to the front after a mistake by Kyle McBride, this time the Australian flipping his Associated on the run down the main straight with 2-minutes to go. Having started from the back of the grid Maifield would mount an attack on his team-mate but getting out of shape in the sweeper as he tried to get down the inside he would then crash at the following double to finish 1.4 seconds back. In the other 2 encounters Spencer Rivkin cruised to an easy win in the opening race over Billy Easton & Jared Tebo. A hectic Race 2 would see Steven Hartson win from JP Richards, the Durango driver having led 13 of the 16 laps, with Round 1 winner Kody Numedahl completing the Top 3.
‘They went my way in the first two. It doesn’t get much better than that’, said a very happy Evans. The former champion added, ‘I just drove patient although I made one mistake.’ He continued ‘I got by Wesley (Van Helmond) and then McBride made a mistake but Maifield was on the gas. He was a man on a mission and forced me to push hard. I was trying not to make any mistakes, then he made one which lifted the pressure’. Setting the fastest lap of the race on the penultimate lap, Maifield looked like he might just get down the inside on the final run through the sweeper but his 22 got out of shape leading to a mistake at the double, resulting in him losing over 1.5 seconds. 3-seconds further back McBride would complete the Top 3.
In a race that started off with it hard to keep track of all the incidents, Hartson summed up his start to the event as going ‘better than expected’ jokingly ‘it usually starts off rough’. Starting from 8th on the grid, the opening lap would see the former World Champion drop to last after contact with former team-mate Tanner Denney. Fifth by the end of lap 1, he said ‘I just let everyone crash and it seemed to worked out the best’. Chasing down JP Richards, with the first and so far only 17 lap of the OCRC track, he would get down the inside of the former Reedy Race Open Class Champion but at the double the Durango driver would make contact. With both cars needing marshalling Richards got released first, something the race referees didn’t like, but by the time he got to Richards to give up the position he had crashed coming onto the straight handing Hartson back the lead. Giving his view of the incident Hartson said, ‘I made the inside pass and then he Monster Trucked me but it all worked out as he ended up crashing later in the lap’. Taking a win in Round 1, Billy Easton’s foot would end Ryan Cavalieri’s chances of doubling up. Coming onto the straight for the first time, as Easton marshalled a car his foot would block the Associated driver dropping him to the back of the field – a rare occasion when his ‘Pudge luck’ left him. By the end of the 5-minutes he worked his way back to fourth, a result he will be hoping is his dropped 2WD result.
Giving his view of a rather dull opening encounter to Round 2, Rivkin said, ‘I took advantage of a pile up at the start and made the most of it’. Starting from 6th on the grid, the World Champion managed to slip through a pile up started as front row starters Carson Wernimont and Billy Fischer made contact. Once in front Rivkin pulled clear to win by over half a lap from Serpent’s Billy Easton. Again the race would see a bad first lap for Jared Tebo but the Kyosho driver would recover to finish third, half a second back on Easton.
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