Cavalieri fastest in 4WD practice at Reedy Race
Ryan Cavalieri has ended Day 1 of the 22nd running of the Reedy Race of Champions at the top of the 4WD practice time sheets. While times will count for little once the famous heads up racing event gets underway tomorrow with a day of 2WD racing, the 3-time champion would head a Team Associated 1-2-3-4 ahead of Spencer Rivkin, Kody Numedahl and Steven Hartson. Former Associated driver Tanner Denney would open his first event with TLR as the best non AE driver after the 3 rounds of practice taking his 22-4 to the fifth fastest time with Yokomo’s Carson Wernimont completing the Top 6. For reigning champion Ryan Maifield after problems in P1 & 2, the TLR driver would end the day seventh quickest, 6th to 10th separated over 3-consecutive laps by just 0.022 of a second.
‘I didn’t touch anything, just drove it and she is on the shelf now til Saturday’, was a pleased Cavalieri’s reaction to topping 4WD practice. Winning his third Reedy Race when OCRC first hosted the event in 2014, he said the only adjustment he made over the day was to his Orion speedo profile. For P3 he went with less turbo which he said ‘kept the speed right for the jumps’. With the handout Pro-Line tyres now working good he said ‘everything is ready to go racing’.
‘Really consistent’ was how Rivkin described his P3 performance. 0.177 off Cavalieri, the 17-year-old said a chat with team-manage Brent Thielke after P2 about cleaning up his driving helped. With his B44.3 ‘easy to drive’, which he added is ‘really good for racing’, he said he drove with more discipline and kept to his lines and that approach ‘paid off well’.
Numedahl described his car as ‘awesome’, adding this was the ‘most comfortable the car can get’. Making a small ride height adjustment for P3, which made it a little safer to drive’, he said the key was to be disciplined in a few spots around the track. The AE designer said running big motors for the straight this meant you had to drive safe in the infield. Making the Top 5 in the 2WD times, he said 4WD was ‘not as challenging as ‘the triples are so much easier to make’. Admitting while they don’t run 4WD for a day & half he believes his car will be fine with no set-up changes planned. Fifth fastest, team-mate Hartson was also pleased with his 4WD. The former World Champion said his B44.3 has been ‘pretty good off the bat’ and he didn’t have to touch it over the 3-practice runs.
Having only had 3-days with his new TLR cars, when he travelled out to OCRC with Maifield two weeks ago, Denney said his 4WD is running really good’. Running ‘a lot of droop’ he said this is helping him through the jumps but ‘running smooth for (his) driving style’ was a big factor to his performance today. Changing from an aluminium rear 22.4 hub to a 22 hub the 20-year-old said this made the car a little more stable allowing him to carry more corner speed. Happy to have pace he said if he can race without crashes things should be good in 4WD.
Describing his YZ-4 as ‘really good’, Wernimont said with it ‘super easy and comfortable to drive’ he is ‘not pushing’ added this is ‘what this race is all about’. Asked about the track layout, the Californian said ‘its fun but for racing its a bit too much’ adding the two triples are going to be ‘a crash fest on the first lap’. Yokomo team-mate Lee Martin would end up 13th fastest but the European Champion said his RC Concepts powered YZ-4 is ‘fine’, this being his first race with his new electrics sponsor. The British driver said ‘4WD is very close’ and it is ‘going to be anyones’ to win.
Having sorted out the issues that left him struggling in the first two practice rounds, Maifield said he didn’t really put 3-laps together in P3 but the champion was able to show his TLR 22-4 has good pace as he posted the outright fastest lap of the day with a 17.482. Describing the car as ‘still a little stiff’ he said it would be a little nervous to drive if conditions stay like they are now but if the grip comes up the set-up should work well. With a full day of 2WD racing tomorrow and a morning of 2WD action on Saturday he said he would see how the track changes before the first 4WD round of racing on Saturday afternoon and then decide if he needs to adjust his set-up. Behind Maifield, Kyosho’s Jared Tebo was 8th fastest with TLR team-mate Dakotah Phend 9th. As in 2WD Michal Orlowski was again the fastest European driver, his Schumacher completing the Top 10.
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