Rivkin sets early 2WD pace at Reedy Race

Up and coming offroad star Spencer Rivkin set the early practice pace in 2WD buggy at the 21st running of the Reedy Race of Champions. Having only signed a multi-year agreement with Team Associated and Reedy last month, the 16-year-old set the fastest lap of the morning at OCRC Raceway ahead the TLR’s JP Richards, Associated team-mate Steven Hartson and defending back to back champion Ryan Cavalieri.

While being fastest has never been the key focus to achieving success at the Reedy Race due to its heads up multiple race format, Rivkin was no less pleased with his early pace describing his Reedy powered B5M as ‘really easy to drive’.  Setting a fastest lap of 21.643 seconds in P2, the Arizona driver said while the track layout is ‘not too hard to get used to’ he likes how it feels to drive. A team driver for the 2WD class’ hand out tyre brand JConcepts, he said for the remaining practice, drivers running 3 rounds of practice per class, his focus is just to break in his Dirt Webs tyres and leave the car’s set-up as is.

Reigning champion Cavalieri, who last year became the most crowned champion of the event when he claimed his third Reedy Race victory, was pleased with his start to the day.  One of only 6 of the invite’s 30 drivers to break into the 21-second lap times, the multiple World Champion said his Orion powered B5M felt pretty good with the second run better as the tyres came in.  Declaring himself ‘confident’ with his car he said he is still working out a few of his lines adding there is room there for a little improvement.  Commenting on this year’s track layout he said it was ‘fun so far’ but once the grip comes up it should get ‘more interesting’.

A driver who knows the OCRC better than most, as its his home track, Hartson said the layout was easier than what they normally run with this years layout having ‘a lot of rollers and singles’ but he thinks it will make for good racing with ‘lots of passing spots’.  Pleased with the early performance of his Reedy power B5M, the reigning 4WD World Champion said the second practice was better as the tyres scrubbed in and he will use the final 2WD practice to scrub in a second set of Dirt Webs.

The only European to win the event, and the last driver to hold the title before Cavalieri’s reign, Joern Neumann said he needs improve his motor timing for the last practice.  Currently running without a chassis sponsor, the German is using a Yokomo in 2WD.  Running an 8.5 turn Orion motor he felt he was lacking low end punch and will make a timing change for P3.  Also looking for a little more steering the European Champion described the layout  as ‘better than last year’.

While Yokomo have no official team representation at this year’s Reedy race their YZ-2 is also the car of choice in 2WD for new HB signing David Ronnefalk and S-Workz’ Atsushi Hara.  Ronnefalk, who is making his Reedy Race debut, was also looking to get a little more steering but overall the Swede said it was ‘so far so good’.

Hara, who hasn’t raced 1:10 offroad since this event two years ago put in some testing at SDRC in preparation for the event but said having set-up the car on that track it wasn’t so good in the first practice as the grip at OCRC was much lower.  With Shin Adachi having built the car for Hara, he said he had to get out the manual out to put a set-up for P2, running the car’s standard set-up which he said felt pretty good.  With the rear end much better he said he will now try to get the front more aggressive.

Having come so very close to his first Reedy Race win last year, then driving for Associated, TLR’s Ryan Maifield said his Orion powered 22 felt ‘comfortable’ and he was just waiting for his tyres to come in a little more.  With the track conditions not warming up as much as he expected he said for the last one he will probably go a little softer in shock oil.  In terms of the layout he said the front jump section was an area that he could improve his driving.

TLR team-mate and 2011 Champion Dustin Evans said initially his car felt pretty good until he suffered a stripped servo.  Describing the track layout as ‘polar opposites’ to last year, he said he ‘sucks’ on the double at the right side of the track.  Hoping that the track will be good for racing he said he is slightly concerned over the 180 at the end of the straight saying it could cause chaos particularly at the start of races.

Finishing on the podium last year behind the two Ryans, Ty Tessmann declared himself happy with his second run after making changes to his car.  Running a prototype car which himself and his father Gord have created, as HB don’t yet have a 2WD buggy,  the 1:8 World Champion said the track is ‘more fun to drive’ than last year adding that we would ‘have to wait to see how good it is when racing starts’.

Of the 30 invited drivers, which this year features a number of young up & coming European talents, only one change had to be made to the original starting list.  Having got away with serving Jury Duty last year to attend the race, former World Champion Neil Cragg was again called up and although they still had some of hope of attending on Tuesday it wasn’t to be and the Team Associated drivers place was allocated to the one and only Barry Baker.

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