Cavalieri biggest winner of opening Reedy Race encounter

Ryan Cavalieri, Brent Thielke and Travis Amezcua have opened their Reedy Offroad Race of Champions with victories of their respective races with former champion Cavalieri taking the biggest win in a race that featured three electric offroad World Champions.  The opening race of the 19th running of the famous event, the current World Champion cruised to a 7-second win over Jared Tebo with Ty Tessmann coming from 8th on the grid to complete the Top 3.

After the race Cavalieri said his Associated B4.1 was really good but added he expected more of a battle.  Starting from pole, the American said the woop section played out bad’ for the rest of the pack giving him enough of a break that he could focus on his own race and open up a comfortable gap.  Set to start on pole for the 2nd of the six 2WD races before the drivers switch to their 4WD buggies, Cavalieri said he hopes for a similar result then.

Tebo who started from 6th on the grid, described his 2nd place finish as ‘awesome’.  Making big changes to his RB6’s set-up after yesterday’s practice he said his buggy was not too good but added he now knows what set-up he needs to run and his is very confident about the rest of the races.

In the second race Brent Thielke, the man responsible for putting on the Reedy Race ‘show’, took the win but only after a battle with the pole starting TLR of Matt Castellano which saw the pair swap the lead of a number of times.  While the front row of the grid battled up front, reigning champion Joern Neumann, who arrived at the track this morning to a reserved ‘VIP Champion’ parking spot right at the front door of the West Coast R/C Raceway, came through from 9th on the grid up to third looking like a serious treat for the win.  Unfortunately for the German a mistake at the end of the straight in which his buggy flipped dropped him back but a late mistake by Castellano would let him through to finish 2nd, a result he said was ‘really good especially for 2WD on dirt’.

The final race of the opening round produced the closest finish with Amezcua just holding off Atsushi Hara by .149 of a second.  Hara who started second behind Amezcua managed to find a way passed the Durango driver but then lost it on the double jump on the entry to the main straight.  One lap later Amezcua made the exact same mistake but unfortunately for Hara he could capitalise as he collected the foot of Joern Neumann who was marshalling Amezcua’s DEX210. Amezcua said he went a ‘little too much’ with the set-up changes he made last night and will go back to a lighter spring for his next race.  Happy with the win Amezcua said ‘it was a little lucky but this race is all about luck’.

Hara, who is running a Kyosho in mid motor configuration, said he just tried to manage the race as best he could and so starting & finishing second was a decent result. Having managed to make his buggy more stable for the opening race he said the mid motor has some good points on the track where he is much faster than his rivals running rear motor set-ups but one spot he has a disadvantage is the double coming on to the straight but every run with the car he gets more confident with it and so he has a good feeling for the rest of the event.

Round 1 2WD Buggy
Race 1
1.(1) Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 15/5:08.294
2.(6) Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 15/5:15.048
3.(8) Ty Tessmann – HB/HPI Racing – 15/5:17.019
4.(10)Lee Martin – Tamiya – 14/5:00.462
5.(2) Neil Cragg – Associated – 14/5:03.149
6.(3) Ryan Maifield – Associated – 14/5:03.149
7.(7) Chad Due – Associated – 14/5:10.161
8.(9) Cody Tuner – Kyosho – 14/5:11.627
9.(5) Hupo Honigl – Team Durango – 14/5:12.937
10.(4)Peter Pinisch – Associated – 14/5:17.957

Race 2
1.(2) Brent Thielke – Associated – 15/5:13.475
2.(9) Joern Neumann – Team Durango – 15/5:15.561
3.(1) Matt Castellano – Team Losi Racing – 15/5:18.116
4.(10)Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 15/5:18.996
5.(5) Dakotah Phend – Team Losi Racing – 14/5:03.873
6.(3) Kohta Akimoto – Kyosho – 14/5:06.717
7.(6) Rick Hohwart – Associated – 14/5:09.629
8.(7) Tanner Denney – Associated – 14/5:17.421
9.(8) Ryan Lutz – Team Durango – 14/5:19.593
10.(4)Stefan Pfeihofer – Associated – 14/5:20.883

Race 3
1.(1) Travis Amezcua – Team Durango – 15/5:17.174
2.(2) Atsushi Hara – HB/HPI Racing – 15/5:17.323
3.(4) Kody Numedahl – Associated – 14/5:01.816
4.(8) Steven Hartson – Associated – 14/5:02.186
5.(3) Rene Trauner – Yokomo – 14/5:08.419
6.(7) Mike Truhe – Team Losi Racing – 14/5:10.334
7.(6) Paul Bradby – Associated – 14/5:10.694
8.(10)Josh Numan – Associated – 14/5:13.660
9.(5) Brian Kinwald – Associated – 14/5:14.524

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