Maifield does TQ triple at ‘The Dirt’
Ryan Maifield pulled off the TQ triple at The Dirt Nitro Challenge as he added the overall buggy TQ to yesterday’s Truggy and eBuggy haul. Having topped the opening round of buggy qualifying at the Fear Farm, the reigning champion again led a TLR 1, 2 from Dakotah Phend to wrap up one round early the overall TQ for the blue ribbon class at the 17th running of the Joey Christensen event. Again it would be HB that provided the closest challenger this time Ty Tessmann finishing third as David Ronnefalk, 3rd in Q1, ran out of fuel on his penultimate lap.
Having inherited the TQ in the opening round after a late error by Spencer Rivkin, in Q2 Maifield controlled the pace from start to finish over the 7-minutes. Making ‘quite a few changes’ to his 8ight 4.0 having found it ”edgy’ in Q1, this made the buggy ‘super predictable’. Also making changes to ‘smooth out’ the power of his Reds Racing engine he said this also ‘helped a lot’. Sticking with Tessmann at the start of the run as his benchmark, he said when they called the Canadian second he ‘chilled’. With no laps being called until the end, he said he didn’t know how he was on pace compared to team-mate Phend who ran a TQ pace the round earlier but ‘luckily (he) was going fast enough to beat Dakotah’. ‘Stoked to TQ all three (classes)’, he said ‘hopefully in the mains I’ll have good runs’ adding ‘the driver without mistakes is the one whose going to take the win’.
Making further changes to his Orion powered example of the 8ight, Phend said he ‘felt more comfortable’ with the car second time round. The 19-year-old said the track was ‘more grooved up and a lot more slippery but overall he and his car are ‘getting better & better’ each run. Suffering ‘one big mistake’, that cost him 3-seconds on the third lap, looking to make it a Team Losi Racing 1-2 on the grid for Sunday’s 45-minute Main, he said ‘I dont think I’ll change anything as the car is really good’.
‘It started good. I thought I was in the clear with Maifield behind me but then he was right there’, was how Tessmann summed up Q2. Four laps in the 2-time DNC Buggy Champion would case the far right triple allowing Maifield past after which he said he followed him for the rest of the heat. Considering his mistake which cost him over 2-seconds, the World Champion said he was happy with a 3rd. Having struggled with his tyre choice in Q1 he said a switch to Pro-Line X3 Holeshots made his D815 ‘much better’. With his main goal for the third & final qualifier ‘no mistakes’ he will ‘maybe run lighter shock oil and M3s (tyre compound)’ for the cooler night time conditions.
Despite a ‘first lap tumble’, Rivkin said the second heat went ‘really good’. The Associated star said his RC8B3 was ‘so easy to drive (he) could drive it blind folded’. Admitting to getting a little anxious towards the end, the 2WD Offroad World Champion said ‘Maifield put in a good run and deserved it (the overall TQ)’. Confident in his car he said he would ‘go for it in the last round and see how it shapes out’. His senior team-mate Ryan Cavalieri would have a bad run, transponder issues leaving him with no time for the round.
Making his first nitro race outing with Team Losi Racing, Tanner Denney posted the fifth fastest time. Describing track conditions as ‘really hard’, changing to a softer tyre, going from X3 to M3 Holeshots, as well as a stiffer rear swaybar, he said his 8ight was a lot more stable and forgiving. Looking to the final qualifier the 20-year-old said, ‘hopefully I can keep it going for Q3’.
Completing the Top 6 Jared Tebo summed up the second round of qualifying as ‘a lot better than the first one’. With all four tyres coming unglued on the first lap, in Q2 the Kyosho driver ‘had a good run’ except for a ‘really big mistake’. Getting his MP9 up on two wheels he said as he corrected it it clipped the piping sending his buggy bouncing across the track and into a spin all of which resulted in the loss of almost 4-seconds. The 2011 Champion, that win coming at the Nitro Pit before the event moved to the Fear Farm, said as his buggy ‘felt OK’, he doesn’t plan to make any changes for the final qualifier needing a good run to book a direct spot in the A-Main. Behind last year’s podium finisher his team-mate Cody King would post the 7th fastest time followed by TLR’s Cole Ogden and HB’s Tanner Stees, with Adam Drake rounding out the Top 10 for Mugen.
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