Tessmann TQs first buggy qualifier

In a repeat of his yesterday’s Truggy qualifying Hot Bodies’ Ty Tessmann has TQ’d the opening round of Buggy qualifying at the Dirt Nitro Challenge at the Fear Farm in Phoenix, Arizona.  The Canadian set a pace of 11 laps in 7:33.947 to top the first of three rounds by one & a half seconds over TLR’s Adam Drake and World Champion Cody King.

Not the perfect run as he got it wrong over the whoops on two occasions, Tessmann described it as a good solid run to start the day with.  Running Proline M3 Blockade tyres on his OS powered D8 he said M2 might have allowed him to push a little harder but looking to put in a safe run he opted for the softer compound.  With a massive 25 heats to get through each round Tessman said he will make a call on his tyres for Q2 nearer to the time.

Drake said the timing of his first qualifier was right in between a change of conditions.  Opting not to change the shock oil that was in his Novarossi powered 8ight he said it was too light for the hot conditions.  With his buggy very easy to drive initially and running on a faster pace than Tessman, the former US Champion was forced to push hard after a mistake but his shocks were too soft for the more aggressive driving style.  Drake who was running M2 Proline Blockade rubber will go to a heaver oil for Q2 leaving the rest of his set-up as is.

Kyosho’s Cody King was pleased with his first run after making a lot changes to his Orion powered MP9 last night to account for changes in track conditions since Wednesday buggy practice.  Making it a Proline top 3 in Q1 with M3 Blockade tyres fitted to his buggy, King said his equipment was good enough to get the job done and it was down to the driver on what he described as a very edgy track.

Setting the fourth fastest time with his Hot Bodies, Jessie Robbers said he drove well within his means looking to just to open his day with a clean run.  Admitting he didn’t get every lap right he said his CR8 was easy to drive and he thinks it has the potential to be pushed a lot harder.  Also running the the electric buggy class, Robbers who ran red compound Hot Bodies Megabyte tyres on his nitro buggy will use his electric run to evaluate his tyre choice for Q2.

Top Associated driver for the opening round was current US Champion Ryan Cavalieri who took his RC8.2 to the 5th fastest time.  For team-mate Ryan Maifield there was a rather frantic start to the day after he broke the front end of his buggy in the 1-minute warm-up when he hit a rock.  With his pit crew able to get him back out in time to take the start of the heat the incident meant they didn’t have time to tune his LRP engine.  Running a good pace the lack of tuning led to the Truggy Top Qualifier to run out of fuel a lap from the finish.  Despite this he still managed to claim ninth for the round.

Driving for Team Durango 15-year-old Carson Wernimont put in an impressive qualifier to set the 6th fastest time ahead another young gun Dakotah Phend.  Running soft AKA Impact tyres on his OS powered DNX408 the SoCal driver said he was hoping he can continue his form for the rest of the day and try secure himself a Top 12 spot.

The man who TQ’d and won last year’s Dirt Nitro Challenge, Jared Tebo could only managed the 8th fastest time.  The Kyosho ace said his MP9 was a little loose due to a wrong tyre choice.  Planning to switch from AKA Grid Iron to Impact for his second run Tebo said he will also make some front end shock changes along with going lighter with the oil in the centre diff and with this it should be ‘Game On’ in Q2.

Completing the Top 10 was Serpent’s Billy Easton.  The former electric buggy World Champion had to be marshalled but said if he can stay on his wheels his Novarossi powered S811 Cobra is capable of a lot more.

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Maifield is ‘Dirt’ Truggy Top Qualifier

Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield is the Truggy Top Qualifier at the Dirt Nitro Challenge backing up his Q2 performance with another TQ run in Q3 to claim pole position for Saturday’s 45-minute final.  The final qualifier saw the US Champion set the pace from team-mate Ryan Cavalieri with TLR’s Adam Drake third.

Maifield said after making a decent start to the decisive round he ran a few less than perfect laps halfway into the 7-minutes but was able to get ‘back on it’ and get the job done.  Very happy with his LRP powered RC8.2 T, the Arizona driver is confident that they are ‘all good’ for Saturday’s main event and other than maintenance work on the Truggy he doesn’t plan on making any set-up changes.

Starting second on the grid will be Hot Bodies’ Ty Tessman.  Having TQ’d the opening round of qualifying, the Canadian was once again to be hampered when lapping traffic in Q3.  Setting the fourth fastest time for the round, the 19-year-old who is a former Dirt Nitro Challenge Truggy Champion said when he ran clear laps his OS powered D8-T felt good and he believes they are in good shape to battle for the win.  It was a good day for the relatively small factory Hot Bodies team as all three of the drivers are in the final with Jessie Robbers and Tyler Vik securing 11th & 12th, the final two direct qualilfying spots on the grid which will be boosted to 15 with three drivers getting to bump up from the B.  The BQ went to AKA’s Mark Pavidis who finished 8th in last year’s event and will aiming to ensure he makes the main event again this year.

Drake, who will carry the start No.3 on his 8ight-T in the final, said he over drove his final qualifier leading to a few mistakes but feels in terms of overall pace he is right there with the two starting in front of him.  Having watched his opposition Drake feels his package gives him a great number of options in the rhythm section of the track which can play to his advantage in the final.

Lining up fourth on the grid will be Cavalieri.  After a bad start to the day with 11th in Q1 the electric buggy World Champion’s day has improved each run.  Less than a second of Maifield’s time in Q3, he said a softer shock set-up combined with a change to his steering ackerman had made his Orion powered RC8.2 T really comfortable to drive and he is confident he can easily push it harder in the final.

Setting the fifth fastest time in Q3, that is the position Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz will start the main event in front of defending champion and 2011 Top Qualifier Jared Tebo.  Tebo suffered a flame out in the final qualifier but Kyosho team manager Joe Pillars said its nothing to worry about and starting sixth is no big deal.

His first appearance at the Dirt Nitro Challenge, recently turned 15-year-old Dakota Phend will start 7th for TLR.  The other three to make the cut and secure a starting spot in the A-Main are 2011  finalists, TLR pairing Matt Castellano & Mike Truhe and A-Main Hobbies team driver Dylan Rodriguez who will line-up 8th, 10th and 9th respectively. With the truggy grid now decided, tomorrow sees the focus switch to buggy qualifying with a massive 25 groups to get through.

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Maifield ups the pace in Q2

Ryan Maifield upped the pace in the second round of Truggy qualifying at the Dirt Nitro Challenge to take the round from Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz and defending champion Jared Tebo. Setting a new fastest lap of 39.736, Maifield ran 11 laps in 7:20.335, knocking almost 4 seconds of Ty Tessman morning TQ run here at the Fear Farm. Switching to blue compound JConcepts Hybrid tyres on his Associated and running a lighter clutch on his LRP engine, the American Truggy Champion said it was decent run and other than switching back to Green compound for Q3 his set-up was ‘all good’.

After a disastrous opening lap in Q1 which saw his Durango DNX408T involved in three incidents resulting in a 51 second lap, Lutz described Q2 as ‘much better’.  Adding ‘a lot’ of droop to his Alpha powered truggy he said it felt really comfortable and he was able to put in a clean 7 minutes. Running soft compound AKA Ibeam in both qualifiers Lutz plans to switch to the Impact pattern for this evening’s final qualifier as a test for Saturday’s Mains.

The man who last year wrapped up overall TQ honours in the second qualifier, Tebo said his run was really good until he hooked a pipe on the final lap.  The Kyosho ace said without the mistake it would have been very close on time with Maifield.  For Q3 he will make a few changes to his Orion powered ST-RR including switching to a thicker oil in the centre diff and running less rear toe.

Team Losi Racing’s Adam Drake said his Novarossi powered TLR 8ight-T was really good but but ‘one bad mistake’ meant it needed to be marshalled.  Despite the 4 seconds lost he still managed 4th for the round just 2 seconds off Maifield’s time.  Having made up half the Top 10 for Q1 this time round Drake was only joined by TLR team-mate Matt Castellano who set the 6th fastest time.

Having only set the 11th fastest time in the opening round Ryan Cavalieri was fifth in Q2.  The Team Associated driver switched from M3 to M2 Proline Holeshot which he said was not the right call as the compound was too hard for the conditions.  Considering he was one of the few leading drivers to use the harder tyre he said he was pretty happy with his run which was error free.

Setting the 8th fastest time behind Kyosho’s Cody King, Ty Tessman had a potential overall TQ securing run ruined when a truggy he was lapping stopped right in front of him.  Running at a pace that the timing system was predicting would be 2 seconds up on Maifield’s TQ time, Tessman said he was cruising and running well within his limits but expecting the slower truggy to move over rather than just come to a sudden stop there was little he could do to avoid the costly contact.  Having flamed out twice in Q1 Hot Bodies team-mate Jessie Robbers said he just focused on keeping his D8-T on four wheels and he was happy to finish up ninth fastest.  Team Associated’s young up and coming talent Tanner Denney completed the Top 10.

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Tessmann tops Q1 at Dirt Nitro Challenge

Hot Bodies’ Ty Tessmann has topped the opening round of Truggy qualifying at the Dirt Nitro Challenge in Phoenix, Arizona, the 19-year-old setting the pace by just over half a second from TLR’s Adam Drake with Associated’s Ryan Maifield third.  Moving this year to the Fear Farm, this is the 13th running of the signature event of world famous track builder Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen with a record 700 entries set to race 4 class on three tracks over the next four days.

Tessmann, who has been on the road racing since setting out from his Canadian home back in January, was happy with his start to the event making no mistakes over the first of three 7-minute runs that make up today’s schedule. Pleased with his OS powered D8T he said he will ‘just leave as is and drive it’ for Q2 but with that run due to take place in the hottest part of the day he will switch from Proline Holeshot M3 tyres to the harder M2 compound.

Drake was happy with the performance of his equipment in Q1 but said he had a tough opening 2 laps with traffic causing him problems through the whoops section. TLR drivers filled five of the Top 10 spots on the time sheets with 15-year-old Dakota Phend, who is making his ‘Dirt’ debut setting a strong 5th fastest time despite a couple of driver errors while Mike Truhe, Mark Pavidis and Matt Castellano managed 7th, 8th & 10th.

US National Truggy Champion Maifield described his run as ‘safe’. Running Green compound JConcept Hybrid rubber on his LRP power RC8B he said the track is changing every run but overall he is happy with where he is at for now.  His team-mate Ryan Cavalieri was a lot less happy with his start to the event as he only managed 11th albeit just 7 seconds off the pace.  The electric offroad World Champion said if he was to describe how he truly felt after his run it wouldn’t be a quote we could publish after traffic problems killed any chance of a TQ run for the opening round.  Happy with his lap times the Californian planned to go up a little with the shock oil on his Orion powered RC8 B for Q2.

Fastest Kyosho in Q1 was A-Main Hobbies team driver Dylan Rodriguez. The 18-year-old took his OS powered example to the fourth fastest time with a good clean safe run’.  The only other Kyosho in the Top 10 with the 9th fastest time was that of last year’s Dirt Nitro Challenge dominator Jared Tebo.  Setting the fastest lap time for Q1 with a 39.847 lap, he said he took a gamble on tyres which didn’t work out.  Basing his call to run AKA City Block on the front and Ibeam on the rear based on yesterday’s dusty track conditions he said the track was much cleaner today and after 2 crashes he over drove much of the run. Switching to Grid Iron all round for Q2 the World Championship Top Qualifier is confident he can rectify things next time out.

Having attracted some big names to their team for the 2012 season with top Europeans Renaud Savoya and Martin Bayer crossing the Atlantic for the event, it was long time team member Josh Wheeler who was the fastest XT8 with sixth for the round.

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