Video – Truggy Practice Rd1

Tessmann tops truggy practice at DNC

Defending Truggy champion Ty Tessmann set the pace in the one & only round of practice on the opening day of the Dirt Nitro Challenge at the Fear Farm in Arizona. After a 4-hour delay to the start of the 16th running of the Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen signature event, the HB driver set the fastest three consecutive laps over the SWorkz of Austin Blair, with new HB team-mate David Ronnefalk completing the Top 3.  Originally set to run two rounds of practice, a total of 56 heats making up one complete round of all the 1:8 classes, the delayed start means that the second practice has been cut and now instead of reseeding the heats for Q1, they will now be reseed for Q2 based on the Q1 results.

With Joey’s fourth track creation at the Fear Farm, proving very positive with drivers, Tessmann said while conditions for the first run were a little loose the track was fun to drive.  Happy with how his D8T felt over the 6-minutes of track time with no changes planned for the morning’s scheduled first qualifier, the Canadian said he still need to get the rhythm section figured out.  Chasing a fourth consecutive win in the truggy class at the DNC, he said he also needed to pull himself back a little through the S-section so as not to carry too much speed and lose time in the off camber corners.

A-Main team driver Blair, who over 3-laps of the 37-second lap track was half a second off Tessmann, said his S350T felt really good.  Feeling he got into a good rhythm with the ‘fun track’ quickly he said of course there was room to still try to clean it up further but for a first run he was very happy.  Planning to leave his truggy unchanged, the 20-year-old said the only adjustment he needed to make was to his Protek engine which he said could do with a better tune on it.

His first nitro outing since making the switch from long time team Kyosho to HB, Ronnefalk said his truck felt really good a point backed up by him setting the fastest lap of practice with a 37.102.  Traditionally only racing truggy once a year at this event, the Swede said the HB had more punch lower down than he had with his Kyosho due to its gearing as well as having more steering.  Planning to leave his Orion powered example of the D8T unchanged for Q1, he said the track has turned out to be more fun to drive than it looked but added he still needs to get the rhythm section figured out.  He said this would make the track pretty easy but he has his concerns that the rhythms are going to blow out pretty bad.

Posting the fourth fastest time behind his former team-mate, Kyosho’s Jared Tebo was happy with his first run both in terms of how his truggy ran and how he adapted to the track.  Describing the track as ‘a really good layout’, the former DNC double winner, when the race was held at the Nitro Pit, said his timing on some of the jumps still need fine tuning with the triple after the straight away the main area he needed to improve on for tomorrow.  Making the switch to MX engines for 2015 season, Tebo said his truggy engine was a touch rich on the bottom end but he would rectify that for Q1.

Describing the track as ‘fun & challenging’, Barry Pettit posted the fifth fastest time.  Last year’s Truggy runner-up, the Mugen driver said other than going for a stiffer shock set-up on his MBX7T for Q1 he was going to wait for the track to come in before considering any other changes.  The 22-year-old said with just a single run with each of his three cars (Truggy, Buggy & eBuggy) it was going to be hard to get the track sorted particularly the timing of the jumps but once they go full into truggy qualifying tomorrow it should be easier.

Completing the Top 6 was Ryan Lutz, the factory Tekno driver one of the few not overly excited by the track layout,  Describing the layout as ‘OK’, he believes it wont be great to race on as there is a single line but added whether he is right or not ‘remains to be seen’.   Asked how he felt the practice went, he said ‘for my only run it was decent but I need to go up in the diff oils’.

Running his first nitro event for Team Associated, Carson Wernimont posted the 7th fastest time.  The teemager declared himself ‘pretty happy’ with the run considering the number of new parts they are running on the truggy, saying it was pretty close to what it needs to be in terms of set-up.

Taylor Peterson would be the fastest TLR in the single round of practice taking his 8ight-T 3.0 to the 8th fastest time despite his clutch screw coming out.  Not having raced for sometime, he said ‘the roller and corners kicked my ass but the track is really fun’.  For Q1 Petitt will run his truggy with stiffer rear shocks.  Setting the 12th fastest time, Ryan Maifield will also make the same change to his truggy.  Declaring ‘it was ok for the first round’, the TLR ace said he ‘thought (he) had it figured out for the last couple of laps’ and combined with his adjustments to the suspension all should be good for the morning.

Having only had the opportunity to run a few tanks prior to coming into the DNC running for Mugen, Adam Drake said his run to the ninth fastest time ‘felt ok’.  He said his MBX7T feels OK and he is just overdriving more than anything losing time at the end of the straight and with ‘over jumping stuff’.  Describing the face of the jumps as ‘so long’ he will make a clutch change on his Novarossi engine so as to get a more aggressive power band.

View the event image gallery here.

Track Focus – Dirt Nitro Challenge (Fear Farm)

Track Name – Fear Farm
Organiser – Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen
Country – USA
Location – Phoenix, Arizona
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous DNC hosted – 2012, 2013 & 2014

Now in its 16th year of running, this is the fourth time Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen has held his signature Dirt Nitro Challenge race at the Fear Farm in Phoenix, Arizona, and the event is showing no signs of a let-up in its popularity with the 1:8 track alone attracting 800 entries, that’s 56 heats mostly containing 15 cars.  Such an entry is sure to add to the endurance test that DNC’s long days bring, something that was not helped by the first day of the 5-day event getting underway 4-hours late!

At first glance this year’s track is, by Joey’s standards, a rather simple looking layout. Anticipating another record entry, Joey said this was a key factor when creating the 2015 layout as he wanted a track that would better cater for a wider range of driver abilities. Describing the layout as ‘more technical than difficult’, he said the track does look easier than it is but the timing sections and the raised-up off camber hips are going to make ‘fast laps not so easy’.  With the forecast giving no rain for the duration of the event Joey has also been able to dig deep and create a lot of elevation changes.  One key change over last year is the direction which now runs clockwise with the first big elevation change coming at the start of the lap with a huge step up onto the main straight.

On site three days prior to the Superbowl, which took place at the nearby University of Phoenix Stadium on February 1st, Joey has been able to dedicate a week to the building of each track, 1:8, 1:10 and large scale, with him very proud of the fact all three tracks share the same configuration.  Raining for the first 4-days of the build, with this pretty much halting construction work, Joey said overall it was of benefit in terms of working the dirt.

Winner of both Truggy & Buggy last year, successfully defending his title double from the previous year, Ty Tessmann gave the track layout a big thumbs up saying it ‘looks cool’.   HB’s World Champion said he expects the track to be a little more challenging than it looks adding the timing sections and the ‘cool burm triple’ would be the most challenging aspects.  The Canadian added that there were a few areas where time could be made up but at the same time it would be easy to overshoot and give away time.  Overall the general opinion of the layout among the top drivers is positive with Adam Drake, who is racing after putting together a late deal to run for Mugen for the event, believing the layout will make for good racing.

Image Gallery