Phend claims first overall Cactus TQ

Dakotah Phend has claimed his first overall Buggy TQ at the Pro-Line Cactus Classic, the Team Losi Racing driver recovering from two crashes to take his second TQ run of the day in the fourth & final qualifier ahead of Travis Amezcua and Ty Tessmann.  A three way battle to become Top Qualifier of the 28th running of the presitigious race it ended up being a bad last round for Jared Tebo and Ryan Maifield.  Having TQ’d Q1 yesterday, Tebo looked to be the benefactor of Phend’s mistakes until he crashed on the last lap dropping him back to seventh.  Fastest  in Q2, Maifield was running on pace with Phend until he crashed, the Arizona driver’s run going downhill from there including his B5M leaving the track at the uphill section.  Despite finishing 15th, Maifield will start 2nd on the grid followed by Associated team-mate Ryan Cavalieri and defending champion Tebo.

Having not even made the A-Main 12-months ago, Phend was pleased to secure his first overall TQ agreeing he made the task a little harder than he needed to.  Claiming both mistakes as pure driver errors, the US National Champion said his Pro-Line equipped TLR22 was really good.  Starting out front tomorrow the 17-year-old said passing will only be possible through mistakes and his aim is to keep it clean and just run his own race.

‘Threw it all away on the last lap’ was how Tebo summed up the final qualifier. Having had a bad Q2 and only 9th in Q3, the World Champion said he went into the heat looking to ‘just put in a safe run’.  Hearing he was close to the TQ time he pushed harder but ultimately pushed too hard.  ‘Bummed about the crash’, he said he got lucky with his grid position as he took the three way tie break for 4th position.  Struggling a little with the rear end feel of his RB6 he said it kept ‘dumping abruptly’ and he needs to sort that for tomorrow. Commenting on what he expects from the finals he said ‘everyone is going to crash so I’ve got a shot’.

Needing a good run in the final qualifier to make the A-Main, Team Novak’s Billy Fischer took a fourth for the round saying he ‘finally got it together’.  Running an Associated C4.2 Centro, he said fifth on the grid is his best result for some time and finally he didn’t come of the worst of a tie break. While he doesn’t believe he can win, one of offroad racing’s colourful characters said anything can happen.

2WD Buggy A-Main Grid
(11th driver to bump up from B-Main)
1. Dakotah Phend – TLR – 0 pts
2. Ryan Maifield – Associated – 2
3. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 6
4. Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 7
5. Billy Fischer – Associated – 7
6. Travis Amezcua – Durango – 7
7. Dustin Evans – TLR – 9
8. Ryan Lutz – Durango – 9
9. Spencer Rivkin – Associated – 10
10.Ty Tessmann – HB – 12

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