Phend rolls his way to Buggy TQ at US Nats

Dakotah Phend literally rolled his way to becoming Top Qualifier at this year’s US National Championship taking the third qualifier at Thornhill Racing Circuit despite running out of fuel coming out of the final corner.  Benefiting from the hill off the last corner’s step down, the Team Losi Racing star would take the penultimate qualifier from Q1 pace setter Ty Tessmann by 1.255 seconds, the HB driver himself having problems with a late mistake.  With the tie-breaker being the combined times of the two best runs, even if Tessmann was to take the final qualifier his running out of fuel in Q1 which cost him from going 10 laps means Phends two 10-lap TQ runs can’t be beaten.  Behind the two early title favourites, Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield backed up his Q2 performance by again completing the Top 3.

‘That was a crazy qualifier’ was how Phend summed up the run that sees the 17-year-old Top Qualifier of the premiere class for a second year in succession.  After a ‘rough first lap’ and not getting into his groove right away, the Michigan driver said for the rest of the run he ‘just drove the best (he) could’.  Describing his 8ight as ‘really good’ he could not believe it when the engine cut 5ft before the line but thankfully he was able to roll it across the line to complete that all important 10th lap.   Asked about the short coming in fuel for his Orion engine, he put it down to the pace being so high and as a result the buggy spinning its tyres alot more.  Having TQ’d last year, also in Texas, he said it was ‘awesome’ to repeat the result adding for the Semi Finals his approach would be to make a ‘smooth start’.  Last year in Houston, the talented driver who is in search of his first nitro title never made it to the Main retiring during his Semi.

Tessmann said his run ‘was going good’ until he rolled over his D812 on the second last lap.  Happier with conditions today, feeling the track has more grip than yesterday, the 2012 Champion said his buggy was good but for the next one they will work on improving the consistency of his OS Speed engine.  Setting the fastest lap, towards the end of the 7-minute run he said the engine was leaning out and for the final qualifier they will change their Nitrotane fuel to a higher nitro level.  Having switched to 25% nitro so as to have less power to make the buggy easier to drive in the loose conditions he said they will revert to 30% so they can run the engine slightly cooler.

‘At least it getting more consistent’, that was Maifield’s reaction to this third for the round.  Finishing 1.3 seconds off Tessmann, he said the run could probably have been a little cleaner but in the end it was ‘not too bad’.  Running JConcepts blue compound Crossbow tyre on his Novarossi powered RC8.2, he plans to make a rear end change to the buggy to get ‘some extra forward bite’.

Setting the fourth fastest time after a not so good day yesterday with a 10th in Q1 and a DNF in Q2, Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz said ‘I finished and didn’t crash so that was good’.  Making a ‘wonderful start’, he said his Alpha engine started to go lean and in the end this resulted in the DNX8 Prototype becoming difficult to drive.  Happy with how the buggy ran early on he will leave it as is for the final qualifier and just focus on getting a better tune on the engine for the hot Texas weather.

Using Q3 to start working on a set-up for the finals, Carson Wernimont said his Mugen did what he wanted it to do.  While it started off slow he said it got faster and faster until he ran out of talent and spun under braking which he added probably cost him a Top 3 which would have improved his overall ranking.  For Q4, he will use the track time to test tyres for the final switching from AKA’s soft Enduro to medium Impact.

Austin Blair would complete the Top 6. The A-Main Hobbies team driver said his improvement in performance, yesterday netting him ‘nothing good’, came from him driving ‘a lot slower’.   Changing the diff oils on his OS Speed powered Kyosho, he said this gave it less steering and made it more calm to drive.  The 19-year-old plans to leave it the same for the final qualifier hoping he can repeat his Q3 performance through his driving.

Setting the seventh fastest time Kyosho’s Jared Tebo said it ‘was a really clean run but just not fast enough’.  The 2010 Champion said he is having a hard time pushing in the track conditions and he is not sure what to do in terms of finding overall pace.  Behind Tebo, Josh Wheeler took his Xray to the eight fastest time followed by the Serpent of Mike Truhe with new TLR signing Taylor Petersen posting his first Top 10 run.

Q3 Buggy times – Top 10
1. Dakotah Phend – TLR/Orion – 10/7:44.343
2. Ty Tessmann – HB/OS Speed – 10/7:45.598
3. Ryan Maifield – Associated/Novarossi – 10/7:46.937
4. Ryan Lutz – Durango/Alpha – 9/7:01.226
5. Carson Wernimont – Mugen/OS Speed – 9/7:01.240
6. Austin Blair – Kyosho/OS Speed – 9/7:01.603
7. Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion – 9/7:02.004
8. Josh Wheeler – Xray/OS Speed – 9/7:03.959
9. Dylan Rodriguez – HB/OS Speed – 9/7:04.922
10.Taylor Petersen – TLR/Novarossi – 9/7:05.447

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