2WD complete at Reedy Race, Evans leads

With the first part of the 22nd running of the Reedy Race of Champions is complete and it is former Champion Dustin Evans who leads at OCRC Raceway in California.  The Team Losi Racing driver, who came into the second day of the event leading the points, finished up the 2WD action with a win in the 6th round allowing the Colorado driver to drop a third place from Round 3. One of only three triple winners, Evans goes into the 6 rounds of heads up 4WD racing with a 1-point lead over TLR team-mate Dakotah Phend.  It was a great start to Day 2 for Phend, the 18-year-old winning both his encounters with a 10th from Round 2 when he broke becoming his throw out round.  Behind the two TLR drivers, it is Team Associated’s Kody Numedahl who completes the Top 3.

Changing to a stiffer front suspension on his Orion powered 22, Evans said it was ‘awesome’.  With a 1st or 2nd required to better his points, he said he ‘had nothing to loose’ starting from 8th on the grid adding to ‘get the win was huge’.  Having ‘a good battle’ with pole starter Ty Tessman, getting by the Canadian on lap 12 of 17, he said 2WD had been a good start to the event.  Feeling he had a good draw in terms of his 2WD starting position he expects 4WD to involve some tougher grids. With his TLR22-4 having been good in practice he said while the track is going to be very different his plan is to go out ‘have fun and do what (he) can’.

Also winning his final encounter off the back of the grid having started 9th, Phend said he got a really good start and other than one mistake kept things smooth allowing him to benefit from a mistake by race leader Tebo who got the landing off the second triple, which has been christened the widow maker’, completely wrong four laps from the finish.  Phend said his 22 has been getting better as the traction comes up and he was particularly happy that he could ‘Drop a 10 with a 1’ thanks to his Round 6 win. Looking to 4WD, two of the six rounds taking place today, the Michigan driver said he is ‘really comfortable’ with his 22-4 and ‘looking forward to it’.

With three wins to his credit, Numedahl would fail to improve his points tally of 10-points.  After a rough 2nd lap he could only manage 4th in his final race behind Phend, Tebo and Cavalieri.  Also on 10 points, but with one less win, are former Champions Cavalieri and Ryan Maifield, as are 2WD World Champion Spencer Rivkin and Jared Tebo with 1 win each.  Rivkin would loose out on claiming a second win that would have left him 3rd overall at the end of 2WD with a late mistake that let AE team mate Steven Hartson through for the win in the final round.

Admitting he ‘got lucky at the end’ when Rivkin got the second triple wrong on the last lap, Hartson said getting to drop a 6th ‘helped a lot’.  Sitting 8th at the end of 2WD with 13 points, the former 4WD World Champion believes 4WD will be better for him at his home track and said ‘its still all to play for’.  With this year’s track layout popular with racers to drive on in terms of racing they have found it a challenge with many predicting 4WD is going to be hectic.

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