June 19, 2014

Lutz fastest in opening seeding practice at US Nats

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Ryan Lutz was fastest in the opening seeding practice at the 1:8 Offroad US National Championship. Having had his first truggy time disallowed, in buggy the Team Durango driver put in a convincing performance over 3-consecutive laps around the Thornhill Racing Circuit to top the times from Truggy pace setter Ty Tessmann. As in truggy Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield would post the third fastest time followed by Dakotah Phend and defending champion Adam Drake.

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‘Awesome’ was how Lutz described his Alpha engined DNX408. Only changing from red to black inserts in his soft AKA Impact tyres he said the car worked well over the bumps on the track which he said had a ‘slickness to the groove’. Changing one thing every run since arriving in Texas for the event he said his big focus has been on trying to get the buggy to square up on the exit of the corners for his ‘punched’ driving style. Working closely with his team-mate Travis Amezcua he said the input has been very helpful. Planning to add more anti-squat for the final seeding run which will bring day 2 of the championship to a close, he said they were now fine tuning the balance between rear roll and the buggy being ‘planted’ out of the corner.

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Describing the run as ‘loose’ with the track getting ‘very polished out there’, Tessman said his OS Speed powered D812 was really well balanced despite the conditions. Pointing out that the track already has more mileage on it then at last months warm-up event, the Canadian said it was hard to tell what the track was going to do. Running Proline X2 Blockades, the 2012 Champion said with conditions set to be cooler for the second seeding run he would wait till nearer the time to decide on changes with shocks and tyre compound the most likely adjustments he will make.

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‘Wasn’t the fastest but it was OK’ was how Maifield summarised his 7-minute run. Changing to a different header on his Novarossi engine he said the extra top speed that gave him was good. Running a set of JConcepts blue compound Cross Bow tyres on his RC8.2, he plans to try a different a smaller pin tyre for his scheduled heat most likely going for a set Hybrids. In terms of set-up he will try a droop adjustment.

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TLR’s Phend had a ‘rough round’. Suffering a steering servo failure half way through the run, in the five laps he did get to run he said his 8ight ‘felt good.’ Other than fitting a new servo, the teenager said he plans to leave the buggy the same for the next run adding that for tyre choice a lot will depend on the watering of the track, which is now set to take place between the end of truggy practice and start of buggy. Running Proline X2 Blockades, he said he plans to continue with those but maybe the track conditions will warrant a compound change.

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Having set the pace in yesterday’s opening timed practice, Drake said his seeding run was ‘OK’. Describing his Novarossi powered 8ight 3.0 as stable he said his tyre choice was ‘just slightly too hard’ which left him lacking a little grip. A three time US National Champion, the Team Losi Racing driver ran X2 Blockade tyres saying the track looked grooved up but instead felt polished. Planning on switching to X3 compound, he said he will first watch how the track is after the planned watering.

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Billy Fischer made it three TLRs in the Top 6 with he himself surprised by his time. Joking at the fact that he had two World Champions behind him, Cody King and Ryan Cavalieri 7th & 8th fastest, he said like Drake he probably didn’t have the right tyre for the conditions. Running X2 Blockades he will either run X3 in the second practice or a different tyre in X2. Happy with the set-up of the car he said the tuning of his Novarossi engine will be his main focus as he looks to improve on its run time.

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Winner of the Warm-up Race, Kyosho’s King said everything was running ‘pretty good’ adding it was ‘still early’ with the track continuing to change. Looking to stay with where he is at in terms of his set-up instead of chasing the track. Running X3 Blockades, for the next one the 2010 World Champion will switch to X2. Team-mate Jared Tebo found himself outside the Top 10. The 2010 Champion said his buggy felt good but the time wasn’t there.

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June 19, 2014

Tessmann tops first Truggy seeding practice

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Defending US National Truggy Champion Ty Tessmann topped the first seeding practice run at Thornhill Racing Circuit in Hutto, Texas, this morning. The HB driver raced the fastest three consecutive laps of the large European style track in 134.919 to top the time sheets from Serpent’s Mike Truhe who ran a best time of 135.496 over the 7-minute run. The Top 3 for the first of the two seeding rounds was completed by Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield who set a time of 135.949.

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Tessmann said he ran too soft a tyre for how the track was, having expected it to blow out which he added ‘it didn’t’. Using Proline’s Holeshot tyre in X3 compound on his OS Speed powered D8T, the Canadian said for the second practice he will switch to X2 with the tyres the only change he planned for now. Pleased with his truck he said the only real issue was traffic with him running into a number of crashed trucks over the run.

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Changing caster blocks on his TOP powered 811T for more caster and running it in the quick track cleaning practice run this morning, Truhe said he stuck with the change for the seeding run and he was happy with how everything went. Running X2 compound Pro-Line Holeshots he said they suited the conditions but for the second run more out of wanting to just try something different on the truck he might opt to run a set of Blockades in the day’s second run. As the grip comes up he said the track is coming to the truck continuing that if he had to stick with the same set-up for the rest of the event he would be happy.

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Maifield was content with his pace saying his truck was pretty consistent but added it was lacking a bit of speed. Very happy with his Novarossi engine, he said he need to find a bit more speed mid & exit of the corners. Running JConcepts Hybrid tyre in green compound, the 3-time former champion feels most of that could be found in his tyre selection and for the second run he might go for a different tyre pattern as well as switching his choice of compound.

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Fourth fastest for the round was Dakotah Phend. The 17-year-old was happier with the track conditions today saying he got to run on a slightly drier track and the traction was good which in turn allowed him to carry more corner speed. Describing his Orion powered TLR 8ight T, which he ran the same as yesterday, as ‘really good’ he only plans a tyre compound change for the final seeding practice. Running Proline Holeshot tyre he plans to switch from X3 compound to the harder X2.

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RC America team driver Josh Wheeler took his Xray to the fifth fastest time. Having run soft AKA Grid Iron tyre in the morning’s untimed practice, Wheeler switched to the medium compound for the seeding run. Very happy with the truck he said he ‘I don’t know anything else I can do to go faster, I can change things to make it feel different but not any faster’. Looking to his next practice he said going faster was going to be just down to the driver.

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Completing the Top 6 after the disqualification of Ryan Lutz, was Ryan Cavalieri, the Team Associated driver describing his run as pretty decent. Trying AKA Grid Iron tyres in the morning’s quick practice round and liking them he stuck with those for the seeding practice. With this the biggest change he said the only other thing he did was to add some weight to the front of his Orion powered RC8T. For the next run he will leave the truck as is planning to just rebuild the centre diff to refresh it.

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Mugen’s Carson Wernimont would end up 7th fastest saying he couldn’t complain as his MXB7T was ‘pretty good’. Switching from AKA’s Impact tyre to Grid Irons, he said the switch was a good call. While the track was less dusty today he said it wasn’t really any faster as the the surface was now quite ‘greasy’. Struggling with traffic for most of the run, the practice heats having not been seeded, on the last lap Wernimont would end up with a broken truck due to a slower car rejoining the track in front of him leading to a broken front arm. For the final seeding practice, the 17-year-old said he might just ‘leave it up to the driver to go faster’ rather than change anything in the set-up.

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Behind Wernimont Jared Tebo led the Kyosho challenge. Running in Heat 1, the 2010 Champion hasn’t had the chance to run on an unwatered track but feels his pace for the track conditions he got is ‘really good’. Set to have a dry track for the second seeding run, the track not being watered between rounds today, he said he is really looking forward to it and believes he can greatly improve on his pace.

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Lutz had his time disallowed after his car was found to be 14grams under weight. The Team Durango driver said his truck must have gone on a diet because weight has never been an issue before. Describing the track as a little loose at the beginning he said after that the truck was great and other than adding some weight for the next one he will leave everything as is.

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June 19, 2014

‘From Race Control’ – Day 2, Seeding Practice

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An overcast morning at Thornhill Racing Circuit, Day 2 of the ROAR National Championships in Texas sees things get a little more serious with the day made up of two rounds of 7-minute timed seeding practice. With each round, starting with Truggy and running on through Buggy, the seeding counts a driver’s single fastest three consecutive laps to determine the order for the qualifying heats which will get underway tomorrow.

June 19, 2014

Chassis Focus – Cody King

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Chassis – Kyosho MP9 TKI III
Engine – Reds Racing
Fuel – Byron
Tyres – ProLine Blockade X3
Radio/Servos – KO Propo
Body – Stock
Remarks – Winner at last month’s warm up race, 2010 World Champion Cody King is back in Austin running what looks to be a pretty standard TKI III. While getting a closer look, though, it comes to attention the use of many lightweight parts that make the buggy really light: titanium turnbuckles, aluminium suspension balls and shock mounts and a full set of titanium screws. The car also features a coloured radio tray, using yellow base parts with black tops.

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June 19, 2014

Drake & Tessmann set early pace at ROAR Nationals

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Defending ROAR 1:8 Offroad Champions Adam Drake and Ty Tessmann got proceedings at the 2014 National Championships in Texas underway by setting the fastest time of their respective title classes. In Buggy Drake had the fastest 5-lap average of the first timed run with a 46.147 with Serpent’s Mike Truhe closest on a 46.183 pace with Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield third. In Truggy Tessman’s HB had a distinct advantage over the Mugen of Carson Wernimont and the TLR of Josh Glancy around the beautifully presented Thornhill Racing Circuit.

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Drake said he was really happy with how both his buggy and truck ran adding for his truck run he was at a little bit of a disadvantage as the track was heavily watered before the start of the round. In terms of the track, the TLR driver said its ‘really fun and different’ to what they normally race on in the US and he ‘actually like(s) the layout’ but added he wished ‘they could have made the obstacles more challenging’. Describing the layout as ‘so fast’ he said it should make for close racing.

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Commenting on the track Tessmann said it was a ‘little too easy of a layout’ adding while it would be easy to drive around it all day it was ‘hard to go really fast’. The Canadian said as it blows out it will get even more difficult because there are a lot of blind spots that will make it hard to judge any holes and ruts that develop over the course of the event. In terms of his cars he has been playing with gearing and tyre compounds. In the first untimed practice, which was operated by way of a ticket per car which drivers just queued up to use, Tessman said the gearing change suited his D812 but not his D8T ‘Tessman Edition’ truck. In the timed practice it then didn’t suit the buggy as the track changed so he will revert back to the original gearing he started out with. Running a few new parts on his buggy as part of their World Championship preparation he is also running a new soon to be released radio tray. The new unit which is nearly at final design stage will be included in future kits but will also be sold by HB separately for current drivers wishing to upgrade their buggy. In terms of tyres Tessmann has been playing around with compound choice of his Pro-Line tires saying they were still figuring stuff out.

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Truhe was very happy with both his TOP powered Serpents. Switching to a harder front spring on his buggy for the first timed run he said it worked pretty well as the track had been clean before the run but with conditions still overall rather dusty he will go back a little softer to make it a little easier to drive when the track is loose. Commenting on his 811T he said he is running the truck the same as he did at the warm-up and he’s really happy with how it feels. Describing the track as ‘fun’, he said hopefully tomorrow it will groove up and some of the dust with go away. For his next truggy run he will try different caster blocks saying it was for no other reason other than to try them as he has a set-up he is already really happy with.

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Despite his 3rd fastest time, Maifield was not happy with his opening runs. Pleased with the power of his Novarossi engine he can’t get to transfer that to the track. Describing Thornhill as a ‘cool facility’ he said the warm-up race layout was a lot more technical and the new layout is ‘too easy’ but added the big separator is going to be when the surface roughs up. The Arizona driver is having trouble with his timing of the jumps on the right side of the track with him either over jumping or chasing jumps and this is something he needs to work on. The Associated team are back running the RC8.2 with Team Manager Brent Thielke explaining the prototype they had been running was ‘not up to expectations’ and they are now working on a major redesign. In the meantime he said they will run the RC8.2 to keep their driver race sharp for the World Championships.

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Second fastest in truggy, Wernimont said his MBX7T felt really good and without traffic, the practice runs being unseeded, he believes he has the pace he needs. He was equally happy with the performance of his buggy but said with the traffic today its hard to truly gauge everyone’s pace. A ‘fun’ track, the teenager said its high speed layout makes it more of a horsepower track rather then a technical one and its going to be important to ‘keep momentum up.’

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Winner of the warm-up race, Kyosho’s Cody King reported himself pleased with his early runs despite breaking his truggy in the first practice after a heavy contact with another truck resulted in a broken front end. The former World Champion is running his Red Racing powered MP9 as he did at the warm-up opting to let the track come to the car rather than go after a set-up. Expecting it will take time for the track to get grip, he said he knows they aimed to create a layout that was ‘a little more mellow to make it good for racing but maybe they over did it.’

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Kyosho team-mate Jared Tebo reported a similar story to King about his runs. Using the same set-up as at last month’s warm-up event, he too is waiting for the grip to come up feeling tomorrow with be a much better indication of who is at what in terms of pace.  Describing both his Orion powered buggy and truggy as feeling good he also feels the track should be more interesting when it ‘chuncks up’.

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TLR star Dakotah Phend said he used the practice runs to get his Orion engines figured out for the layout along with trying out different tyre compounds. Making some small set-up changes, the 17-year-old said he didn’t want to change too much today as with more watering the traction is going to come up and he was happy for now to wait for that to happen.

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Heading the challenge of Xray is Josh Wheeler, the World Championship finalist declaring himself very happy with his early pace.  Liking the layout of the right side of the track, he said the left side is much too easy. Changing a couple of small things between runs, for his next practice he will try Xray’s weights for under the hubs which he said is stuff they would normally not use in the US but should give an advantage on the ‘wide open track’. Factory Xray driver Renaud Savoya has made the trip over to pit for Quebec driver Jérôme Treignier but should be able to offer strong support to Wheeler with set-up for the European style track. On Monday, Savoya, as part of his World’s preparations, will test for the day at the track.

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