Maifield gets first win in Round 3
Reigning Champion Ryan Maifield claimed his first win of the 22nd running of the Reedy Race of Champions taking advantage of a pole position start for Round 3 to win ahead of 10th place starter Jared Tebo. In the other two encounters, the round would also see a first win for Maifield’s TLR team-mate Dakotah Phend while Kody Numedahl added a second win to his tally. Half way through the 2WD schedule it is Numedahl and Dustin Evans who sit at the top of the points, R1 & 2 winner Evans recovering from a disastrous first lap to get a third in Round 3 behind Maifield & Tebo.
Having started the first two encounters from the back row of the grid, resulting in a 5th and a 2nd, Maifield would lead away the field from the No.2 starting Schumacher of Michal Orlowski. Once in front his Orion power 22 would pulled clear of the field as he laid down a new fastest lap, being the only the second driver to negotiate the OCRC track in 17-seconds. ‘I didn’t crash so it was good’, was how Maifield summed up his first win. Admitting that starting at the front was a help, the Arizona ace said he ‘just put (his) head down and did (his) own laps’. Very happy with his car, he said the controlled JConcepts Dirt Webs where also getting better making the track a little less tricky adding he was hoping for ‘another decent run to end the day’, round four bringing the first day of racing to a close. For a time it looked like Tebo might be setting himself up to mount a challenge on Maifield until the Kyosho driver crashed with four laps to go and needed to be marshalled. This in turn turned Tebo in to the prey of a recovering Evans but the former champion ran out of laps and had to settle for 3rd.
Commenting on what has been a very strong start to his event, Numedahl said ‘the track is getting more grippy now which is making it hard to make up positions, the triple is not so hard now’. Starting from 3rd, having started the previous rounds 9th and 7th, he said he had to check up while challenging pole sitter Billy Fischer for the lead but the contact with the rear wing of the Tekno team driver’s TLR meant Fischer would get out shape over the jump allowing Numedahl to take the lead. Out front Numedahl would start to come under pressure from team-mate Ryan Cavalieri but the 3-time champion would have a bad landing off the first triple on lap 5 and drop back to fifth from where he would recover to 2nd with Chad Due completing the Top 3.
In the concluding race of the round, starting from third on the grid Phend would take four laps to get a lead he would hold to the finish. Having pulled a rear corner off his TLR22 in Round 2 after landing the first triple on the piping while running second, the 18-year-old said he was ‘patient at the start’ and ‘waited for an opportunity to pass’ and ‘made it happen’ when got down the inside of Rick Hohwart. With his win and a second from the first round, Phend declared himself happy saying saying R2 was ‘just bad luck’.
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