Tyre prep order of day in practice at JConcepts Finals
Tyres are the order of proceedings on the opening day of the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals at HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex in Omaha, Nebraska. The fifth & final stop on the JConcepts INS calendar, the series’ third year to visit the impressive Hobby Plex facility has attracted a high quality driver line up among the 260 plus entries with all using practice to get their tyres down to the right thread depth in preparation for qualifying.
As the schedule switched over to a round of seeding practice new World Champion Spencer Rivkin, who is racing 2WD & 4WD Buggy and Mod Truck, said things were going ‘so far so good’. Content with the performance of all his Associated cars, the 17-year-old said he was ‘just getting tyres dialled in for qualifying’. Running JConcepts gold compound Dirt Webs with Dirt-Tech inserts on 2.2 rims, he said the 4WD needed the most work ahead of qualifying but added that was down to the tyres not yet having reached their optimum point with the Reedy powered B44.3 improving with each run on the same set of tyres. Describing the track layout as ‘awesome’, the Arizona driver added it was ‘challenging’ and would ‘show the men from the boys’.
Although he did the National Championship double here in 2009, when the track was outdoor, this is Ryan Cavalieri’s first time to race on Hobby Plex’s indoor track which was built in 2011. The Associated driver said the height of the driver stand was ‘challenging’ but in terms of his cars ‘everything was going good so far’ with ‘everything dialled’. Racing 2WD Short Course as his third class this weekend, the multiple World Champion said getting his AKA tyres prepared was the biggest focus of the day adding ‘I haven’t touched a whole lot’ on the cars as they have been ‘all in the ball park’ from the first practice. The only adjustments being a rear spring change on his B5M Champions Edition and going to a heavier oil in the rear of his B44.3.
Winner of the two big classes here last year, Jared Tebo said ‘all my cars are pretty good and I have just been working on tyres’. The Kyosho driver said matching the tyres so that the front and rear have the same grip level, joking ‘I hope once I get them right that they don’t wear too much’. Asked about the level of wear the AKA driver replied ‘Its hard to tell as I have been grinding them down (for each run)’. Also racing in Short Course he said his tyre for this still needs a bit of work but for 2WD & 4WD Buggy he can now work on getting a second set ready. Asked about his pace he said with the level of traffic on the track its hard to tell where everyone is at but he declared himself ‘pretty happy’.
Making his dirt race debut with Team Losi Racing’s new 22 3.0, Ryan Maifield said practice was going ‘really good’. The 2014 JConcepts INS Champion said his focus has been getting used to his new 2WD and trying different set-ups to see how it reacts, adding it ‘feels really good already’. Only running buggy this weekend, in 4WD he said he was running ‘standard stuff’ on his TLR22-4 describing it as ‘easy to drive’. Apart from learning about his 2WD he said ‘getting tyres prepped’ was the main order of the day.
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