Track Focus – Fear Farm
Track Name – Fear Farm
Country – USA
Location – Phoenix
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous DNC hosted – Two, 2012 & 2013
This is the 15th annual running of The Dirt Nitro Challenge and to mark the milestone Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen’ has created a track that brings together all the the best elements from his signature event that have proven big hits with racers over the years. The third year hosting the world famous event at the Fear Farm in Phoenix, Arizona, Christensen said a good weather forecast both leading up to and for the duration of the event gave him the freedom to ‘dig down in to the ground’ without the fear of it filling with water and this has giving him greater scope for creativity and more dirt to work with.
Attracting over 700 1:8 entries, the event also featuring separate tracks for 1:10 and 1:5 which have their own events within the event, he said this year’s event has attracted a lot of ‘Dirt’ first timers all of whom have expectations of the special features that have helped make the event world famous. Starting out the build last Monday, along with his right hand man Aaron Webb, he said the first element he worked on was to change the straight line section that has traditionally ran across the front of the drivers stand. From there he said thanks to being able to add lots of elevation changes due to digging deeper into the ground, he was able to include a 9 pack, a step-up and supercross style burms. Summing up his work having just watched the first cars take to the track, the world’s most famous offroad track builder ‘really likes’ how his 2014 creation turned out adding its ‘challenging but not too hard’.
Building the track he said he wanted to come up with a style of layout that was forgiving but ‘to hit perfect every time still needed a driver to be good.’ While drivers arrived to a great track the building was not without its problems with both his tractor and roller both breaking down but Christensen said in his planning for any outdoor work he always allows for problems and so he was able to absorb them with out any issues. While for the past two years the track has seen little action in between the DNC other than some practicing, this year a new club has been formed which will hopefully see racing take place all year round at the venue.
Having completed just one practice of the track last year’s big winners, Buggy Champion Ryan Maifield and Truggy Champion Ty Tessmann, both gave the layout a big thumbs up. Maifield described the ‘fun’ track as having a really good flow adding that the long table tops were a particularly nice feature. Tessmann said the layout was ‘real good’ to drive but added maintaining a rhythm over the many jumps every time was quite challenging but he was looking forward to mastering it.
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