Maifield completes ‘Clash’ title defence hat trick

Ryan Maifield pulled off a hat trick of wins at the 6th Annual JConcepts Clash with the factory Team Associated driver successfully defending all three of his 2011 titles at this year’s event which took place in Mississippi.  Having wrapped up 2WD Buggy & Short Course earlier in the day at the Flowood Indoor R/C Park, Maifield completed the perfect event when he dominated the 30-minute 1:8 Nitro Buggy finals as his main rivals hit problems.  In the end Maifield took the win by four laps from the Losi of Jason Smith with Top Qualifier Dustin Evans recovering from two engine flame-outs to complete the podium.

Pleased with his weekend in Mississippi, from where he will tomorrow travel straight to Argentina for the 1:8 Buggy World Championship warm-up race, Maifield said he had expected a tougher race. Having worked on his RC8.2’s set-up throughout the four days of the event he said it was ‘dialed’ in the final, a fact that was endorsed by his 20.594 fastest lap of the race.

Running one less stop than Maifield, Smith was delighted with second spot as he held off factory TLR driver Evans by 4 seconds.  Competing in his fifth JConcepts Clash, the North Carolina driver benefited from being able to get 10-minutes between stops from the Novarossi engine in the back of his 8ight.  Suffering from brake fade for much of the run he said knowing he had the buffer of one less stop than his rivals he was able to work around the problem.

Running up on a pipe on lap 2 which allowed Maifield to the front, Evans said he had the better car at the start of the race but it counted for little once he had his first flame out 13 laps in.  Cutting twice on the landing after the triple, Evans said increasing the idle cured the problem but having run without problems before the final he had no idea why it suddenly changed.  With his Orion engine running fine following the adjustment he said as the race went on his 8ight got harder to drive as his tyres wore down and developed more and more grip.  TLR/Orion team-mate JR Mitch, who started fourth on the grid, was the first driver to hit trouble in the race when he too suffered a flame out at the triple just 3 laps into the race.  Suffering two further flame outs he called it a day just half way through the race.

Starting from 6th on the 12 car grid, Tanner Denney looked like he might take a podium. Running the 3rd fastest lap of the race, joining Maifield and Evans as the only drivers to run under 21 seconds, the 17-year-old was battling with Smith over second spot when his Reedy engine stopped on lap 41.  Losing a lap as his RC8.2 was brought back to the pitlane and fired back up he rejoined in 7th from where he recovered to finish fifth behind Tim Smith.

With the 1:8 Nitro Buggy final out of the way the schedule moved on to the 3rd round of mains for the electric classes.  With Maifield having wrapped up the two higher profile classes of the event, 2WD Buggy and 2WD Short Course, A3 was all about deciding who was going to be runner-up.  First up was 2WD Buggy which with Maifield sitting the race out had Evans at the front of the grid but the race was to produce no less than four different leaders with Evans, Ruona, Denney and Flurer all getting to run out front it was the former who took it to secure second overall ahead of Flurer.  Evans also went on to win A3 of 2WD Short Course with his 22SCT but despite retiring his example it was Mitch who finished overall runner-up on a tie break.

Elsewhere in 1:8 Electric Buggy Max Flurer won the third A-Main to take the overall win from Jake Dellinger. Top Qualifier and AE team boss Brent Thielke had to settle for third overall on a tie break with A1 winner Dellinger.  In 4WD Buggy event creator and JConcepts founder Jason Ruona took the spoils ahead of A2 winner Denney as he repeated his A1 win in A3 while Max Flurer completed the overall Top 3.

So another JConcepts Clash is in the bag. Having had to contend with rain for the past number of years the 6th running of the event ran swiftly and without interruption. The first time to hold the race indoors the Flowood Indoor R/C Park proved very popular with racers.  JConcepts, who supported RedRC’s coverage of the event, would like to thank everyone who made the trip to Flowood possible, track owner Bubba Barham for the use of the great facility along with Reedy, LRP, Associated, A-Main Hobbies, P1 Brand, Airtronics, Durango, O’Donnell and Futaba for supporting the event.

1:8 Nitro Buggy
Overall Result
1.(2) Ryan Maifield – Associated – 83/30:00.688
2.(5) Jason Smith – Team Losi Racing – 79/30:12.782
3.(1) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 79/30:16.705
4.(9) Tim Smith – Associated – 77/30:15.811
5.(6) Tanner Denney – Associated – 76/30:04.935
6.(8) Jake Dellinger – Assocaited – 75/30:03.691
7.(10)Kevin Hawkinson – Team Losi Racing – 73/30:13.783
8.(12)Shane Ogden – Team Losi Racing – 73/30:21.118
9.(11)Blake Boggs – Associated – 73/30:22.291
10.(3)Cole Odgen – Team Losi Racing – 68/30:06.761
11.(7)William McIver – Team C – 60/24:47.393
12.(4)JR Mitch – Team Losi Racing – 29/14:30.954

2WD Buggy
A3-Main Result
1.(2) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 16/6:16.401
2.(7) Max Flurer – Associated – 16/6:16.569
3.(6) Jason Ruona – Associated – 16/6:18.556
4.(3) JR Mitch – Team Losi Racing – 16/6:22.730
5.(8) Tanner Denney – Associated – 16/6:23.296
6.(5) Zack Genova – Kyosho – 15/6:00.012
7.(9) Daimon Borkowicz – Associated – 15/6:02.253
8.(10)Steve Bortolotti – Tamiya – 15/6:04.811
9.(4) Brent Thielke – Associated – 15/6:07.975
10.(11)Paul Wynn – Associated – 15/6:12.646
11.(12)Jeffery Fleckenstein – Associated – 14/6:11.172
12.(1) Ryan Maifield – Associated – DNS

Overall Result
1. Ryan Maifield – 200 pts
2. Dustin Evans – 199
3. Max Flurer – 197
4. JR Mitch – 196
5. Jason Ruona – 195
6. Tanner Denney – 192
7. Brent Thielke – 191
8. Zack Genova – 190
9. Daimon Borkowicz – 187
10.Steve Bortolotti – 185
11.Paul Wynn – 181
12.Jeffery Fleckenstein – 181

2WD Short Course
A3-Main Result
1.(2) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 15/6:00.484
2.(4) Daimon Borkowicz – Associated – 15/608.614
3.(5) Max Flurer – Associated – 15/6:14.648
4.(6) Paul Wynn – Associated – 15/6:22.534
5.(7) Justin Cranford – Associated – 14/6:01.718
6.(8) Chris Viesins – Team Losi Racing – 14/6:15.220
7.(10)Brian Abbott – Associated – 14/6:17.305
8.(3) JR Mitch – Team Losi Racing – 14/6:23.239
9.(12)Brent Lebo – Associated – 13/6:11.780
10.(11)Jerold Brock III – Associated – 12/6:04.218
11.(9)Tylor Weaver – Team Losi Racing – 12/6:07.363
12.(1)Ryan Maifield – Associated – DNS

Overall Result
1. Ryan Maifield – 200 pts
2. JR Mitch – 198
3. Dustin Evans – 198
4. Max Flurer – 196
5. Daimon Borkowicz – 196
6. Paul Wynn – 194
7. Justin Cranford – 190
8. Chris Viesins – 189
9. Brian Abbott – 187
10.Brent Lebo – 183
11.Jerold Brock III – 181
12.Tylor Weaver – 180

View the complete results here.

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