Rivkin opens final day at Reedy Race with win
Spencer Rivkin has opened the final day of the Reedy Race of Champions in the best way possible with a win that puts the Associated driver one point clear of reigning champion Ryan Maifield with three races remaining. The overnight leader, Maifield would salvage a third from his first race of the day, the win going to his TLR team-mate Dakotah Phend. With a 10 point result to drop after his non-finish in the opening round of 4WD yesterday, Phend’s win puts the 18-year-old right in the mix as the round effectively ended a number of key player’s chances. Leader of the event at the end of the 2WD action, former champion Dustin Evans had another tough round, finishing only 6th as he did in round 1, meaning he will have to count one of the 6th place finishes. The other winner of the round was Steven Hartson, the AE driver’s second 4WD pulling him up the ranking.
Having been beaten off his pole starting position by team-mate Kody Numedahl, Rivkin said ‘Apart from Kody getting the holeshot on me it was really good’. Able to go to the front when Numedahl had a bobble on the second lap, the 17-year-old said he would have one mistake in the sweeper but such was his advantage it never threatened his lead. The first driver to lay down a 16-second lap of the OCRC track, the 2WD World Champion said he was happy that even with the mistake he was still able to run the extra lap, his fastest so far 18-lap race time giving him the advantage should the overall result go to tiebreak. Commenting on his race, Numedahl said, ‘I got the holeshot on Spencer but then had a bobble and after that he pulled away so I just kept an eye on the guys behind and cruised to second’.
Making the most of his pole position start to lead from tone to tone ahead of Rob Gillespie, Phend was another driver who was able to survive a ‘silly mistake’ such was the lead he had built up. Having changed his 22-4 set-up for today, he said he ‘didn’t like it’ with the car ‘less comfortable to drive’ and for Round 4 he will go back to yesterday’s set-up. Starting from 6th on the grid, Maifield was closing on 2nd placed Gillespie but lost time with a mistake coming onto the straight. An error at the end of the straight on lap 6 effectively ended his changes of a third 4WD win. Dropping to 5th he could only work his way back to 3rd.
Summing up his Round 3 win ahead of Yokomo’s Lee Martin, Hartson said, ‘I’m trying to take advantage of my front row starts’. Starting twice on the front row today but also with a 10th spot, he said the race wasn’t perfect as he ‘crashed a few times but I was so far ahead it didn’t matter’. Lining up in the same race as Hartson, it was not the start to the day which Ryan Cavalieri was looking for. Starting 3rd a bad starting Brian Strange, from P2 on the grid, locked wheels with the 3-time Reedy Race Champion dropping him to last from where he would recover to a third making his chances of a fourth title a long shot for the Californian.
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