Tebo & Cavalieri TQ opening truck qualifiers

Jared Tebo and Ryan Cavalieri TQ the opening round of truck qualifying at the Pro-Line Cactus Classic, Tebo taking his Kyosho to the fastest time in Mod Truck with Cavalieri topping the times in 2WD Short Course. Joern Neumann and Cavalieri completed the Top 3 in Mod Truck, while Ryan Maifield was second fastest in 2WD Short Course followed by TLR’s Chris Wheeler.

Describing the track as being ‘so edgy for truck’, he said he ‘was just hanging on for dear life’.  Able to keep the run clean he said he was ‘able to back to down a bit’ by the end as his rivals crashed.  Running his RT6 in mid motor configuration he said for Q2 he will most probably try a different tyre.

Neumann, who is running a prototype truck that features prototype parts based on their new 2WD buggy parts, said he made a mistake as he pushed to try and catch Tebo.  Setting the fastest lap of the round, he also suffered a tangle with Billy Fischer, but overall the German was pleased with his pace joking that ‘l beat Cavalieri, it must be good’.  Running 2-stage foam for the first qualifier he said on looking at his Pro-Line tyres after the run he will switch to closed cell for Q2.   Unfortunately for Fischer, having topped controlled practice yesterday, an ‘unexpected wheelie’ on the main straight caused him to pop a ball cup on his Associated Centro CT.4 putting him out at the 3-minute mark.

Defending 2WD Short Course Champion Cavalieri was pleased with his Short Course but admitted running rear motor in Mod Truck was a struggle.  Running AKA Grid Iron 2 fronts and Typo rear, both soft compound, he said this was a good choice making the truck ‘neutral to drive’.  Planning to leave his chassis & tyre set-up the same for Q2 he said he will increase the power output of his Orion Speedo.  Commenting on his T4.2, he said its too hard to drive with the rear motor on the sugared track making it hard to keep the front wheels on the ground.  He said they will work on trying to improve the track over the weekend adding that ‘maybe (they) will get lucky’.

Wheeler described his opening 2WD Short Course qualifier as ‘very good’.  Having switched to a gear diff in his 22SCT he said for Q2 he will go up in the oil as by the end of the 5-minutes it was starting to ‘diff out a little’.  Team-mate Dustin Evans took his example to the fourth fastest time with a run he said was just ‘OK’.  Suffering one crash he said overall he just ‘wasn’t quite fast enough’.

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