Maifield tops opening truck qualifiers

Continuing on from setting the pace in yesterday’s practice Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield has topped the opening round of qualifying in both Mod Truck and 2WD Short Course at the Pro-Line Cactus Classic. The Associated driver who is the US National Champion and defending Cactus champion in 2WD Short Course TQ’d that class from Kyosho’s Jared Tebo while in Mod Truck he was the only driver to make 13-laps taking the round ahead of TLR’s Dakotah Phend.

A great morning for Maifield, for whom the Hobby Town Scottsdale R/C Speedway is his home track, he said both runs went pretty well although getting caught on a pipe on his final lap of Mod Truck lost him almost 4 seconds. Happy with the set-up of both trucks he said he wont make any set-up changes for Q2 but will on his Short Course tightening the diff and rebuilding the shocks just to ensure they stay fresh.

Despite flipping his Orion powered TLR 22T and losing around 3 seconds Phend described his opening Mod Truck run as a ‘good first run’. Running a mixture of used front Pro-Line tyres and new rears the 15-year-old said the truck felt good so he doesn’t plan on making any changes for his second run of the day.

Phend’s TLR team-mate Dustin Evans took his 22T to the third fastest time but he was not very happy with his driving. With lots of steering at the beginning of the 5-minute run he said he drove smooth which put him in the hunt for taking the round but then he started to over drive leading to a number of mistakes. Happy with the truck he said he doesn’t need to change anything but instead focus on cleaning up his driving. For TLR’s Mike Truhe the opening qualifier ended before it had even started after he broke a rear wishbone during his warm-up lap.

The defending champion of the Mod Truck class Ryan Cavalieri set the fourth fastest time ahead of Associated team-mate Brian Kinwald. The buggy World Champion said he didn’t drive well in the opening few laps resulting in two mistakes but once he found his rhythm he was happy with his pace saying his tyres got better through the run allowing him to set the fastest lap for the round on his final lap.

Second fastest in 2WD Short Course, Tebo described his run as ‘awesome’. The Kyosho team-leader said his Ultima SCR-SP felt ‘really really good’ but said having fitted a new Orion motor for qualifying the timing was slightly off but other than adjusting this he will run the truck the same for Q2.

Setting the third fastest time behind Tebo, Kinwald was content with his opening run. One of the greats of electric offroad racing, the Associated driver said the track is way off compared to previous events with the clay providing very little bite. Although he said his truck doesn’t feel good to drive he said it was down to the track rather than his set-up and rather than make set-up changes he hopes the track will eventually groove up. Cavalieri completed the Top 4 in Short Course followed by Evans and AE driver Kody Numedahl.

Drivers will now switch their attention to the biggest class of the event 2WD Buggy before Q1 is completed with 4WD Buggy and 4WD Short Course.

Round 1 Qualification (Top 6)
Mod Truck
1. Ryan Maifield – Associated – 13/5:28.114
2. Dakotah Phend – TLR – 12/5:06.009
3. Dustin Evans – TLR – 12/5:06.103
4. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 12/5:06.351
5. Brian Kimwald – Associated – 12/5:13.021
6. Charles Hicks – TLR – 12/5:13.664

2WD Short Course
1. Ryan Maifield – Associated – 12/5:12.095
2. Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 12/5:14.609
3. Brian Kimwald – Associated – 12/5:16.699
4. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 12/5:16.732
5. Dustin Evans – TLR – 12/5:18.071
6. Kody Numedahl – Associated – 12/5:19.066

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Maifield completes clean sweep in practice

Ryan Maifield completed a clean sweep of controlled practice at the 26th Annual Pro-Line Cactus Classic steering his Team Associated buggies and trucks to the fastest three consecutive laps in all four classes he is contesting at the famous Arizona race. The defending champion of both buggy classes and 2WD Short Course, Maifield said he was helped by his ‘home field advantage’ but added it had been a good day with his equipment working well and needing little or no adjustments in terms of set-up. With two of the four scheduled rounds of qualifying on tomorrow’s timetable he said other than preventative maintenance his biggest job for the rest of the event will be making the right call on which tyre will best suit the conditions at the time of each of his heats.

In 2WD Buggy it was Kyosho’s Jared Tebo who was closest to Maifield’s pace with TLR’s young star Dakota Phend third fastest. Tebo was much happier with both his buggies in the second practice saying the day ended up ‘pretty good’. Planning to run a stiffer rear spring on his Ultima RB5 for qualifying he also plans to fit a fresh Orion motor, while on his Lazer ZX5, which he took to the 6th fastest time, he will run the buggy 4mm shorter.

Behind Maifield in 4WD Buggy it was Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz and Travis Amezcua with Tamiya’s Lee Martin completing the Top 4. Lutz said after his run that his DEX410 still felt loose but put that down to the fact that he was running a used set of tyres from a previous event but expects a fresh set of AKAs tomorrow will give him a even faster buggy.

The defending champion of Mod Truck Cavalieri had to settle for second behind his team-mate Maifield with Dustin Evans’ TLR 22T third fastest. Evans was best of the rest in 2WD Short Course with Associated driver Kody Numedahl setting the third fastest three consecutive laps for the class around the Scottsdale R/C Speedway track.

With Maifield sitting out 4WD Short Course, the fifth of the big classes that make up the Pro-Line Cactus Classic, it was German ace Joern Neumann who set the pace ahead of Team Losi Racing’s Frank Root and Phend with Amezcua fourth followed by defending Champion Mike Truhe.

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26th Cactus Classic underway

First held in 1986, the Cactus Classic is one of the blue ribbon events on the international 1:10 Offroad race calendar and with a massive 423 entries this year the event is as strong as ever. Attracting some of the biggest names in the sport from around the world, the 26th running of the event marks the return of Pro-Line as title sponsor. The tyre company has a long history with the Arizona event and they are delighted to be back involved with the prestigious event which has been held at the current Scottsdale R/C Speedway track location since 1994. For former World Champion Mark Pavidis this will be his 24th time to contest the race, an honour he shares with Richard Lake, while for legendary race announcer Scotty Ernst 2012 marks his first time as race director of America’s longest running international offroad event.

Holding three of the five big titles up for grabs at this year’s Proline Cactus Classic, Ryan Maifield is the pre-event favourite as this is his home track. Living just 10 minutes from the Hobby Town owned track and shop, it was at the previous SRS track location in Scottsdale that the now factory Team Associated driver got his first taste of r/c racing. Competing in his 19th Classic, the 2WD Vice-World Champion, who appears very relaxed, said he is pretty confident ahead of the event adding his aim is to ‘have fun and see what happens’. Set to defend his 2WD & 4WD Buggy and 2WD Short Course titles, Maifield will also compete in Modified Truck, the class in which his team-mate Ryan Cavalieri is Champion. With enough work in preping four cars both Ryan’s will not run in 4WD Short Course, the other big class of the event.

Winner of 4WD Short Course last year Team Losi Racing’s Mike Truhe said his truck felt good to drive in open practice yesterday but added he expects the competition to be a lot tougher this time round especially from the Team Durango of German ace Joern Neumann.

Neumann is one of a number of top European drivers who have traveled over for the Classic and earlier this year created a major upset for the Americans when he beat them on their own doorstep to become the first ever European to win the Reedy Race of Champions. The current European 4WD Buggy Champion, Neumann has gained a lot of experience of racing on clay over the past year is confident he can get all three of his cars in their respective A-Mains as he competes in both Buggy classes and 4WD Short Course in which he finished runner up last year.

Team-mate Hupo Honigl, who had an event here last year he would prefer not to remember said things should be a lot better this year as their cars, in particular their 2WD Buggy, has seen a lot of development in those 12 months. Honigl is one of the most experienced Europeans to compete in the Cactus Classic, the Austrian having been a regular for many years now. European 2WD Buggy Champion Lee Martin has also made the trip over, this being his 6th Classic appearance. Racing only 2 classes, the Tamiya Racing Factory driver who finished on the podium in 4WD Buggy last year, said he is happy with how both his buggies have run in early practice.

While drivers had the opportunity to get in some track time yesterday, today the event officially kicked off with two rounds of controlled practice from which a drivers fastest three consecutive laps will be used to determine a reseed for qualifying tomorrow. After the first round of practice, which due to the size of the entry took 6 hours to run, the early pace is being set by Maifield in 2WD & 4WD Buggy and 2WD Short Course, by Cavalieri in Mod Truck and Neumann in 4WD Short Course. The second round of practice is set to end later tonight under spotlights.

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