Evans tops 2WD practice at Reedy Race

Dustin Evans set the pace in 2WD practice at the Reedy Race of Champions, the former champion heading a TLR 1-2 from reigning champion Ryan Maifield.   Setting the fastest consecutive laps in the third of the three rounds of practice, Evans was 2/10ths faster than Maifield with HB’s Ty Tessmann completing the Top 3 as the track got considerably faster.  Setting the fastest lap of the day in P3 with an 18.6 second lap, Ryan Cavalieri ended 2WD practice fourth quickest ahead of AE team-mate Kody Numedahl with Jared Tebo rounding out the Top 6.

While times count for little in the unique heads up racing format of the Reedy Race, Evans said his ‘car was awesome’.  Winner of the event in 2011, when the race was held at the since closed West Coast RC, he said ‘I have spent a lot of time here (at OCRC) and my car as been awesome from the first practice’.  Making a small change for P2, he went back for the final practice saying he couldn’t ‘ask for anything more’ from the car and he’s ready to go racing.  Asked about the track he replied ‘I love it’ adding ‘it suits my style of driving and I adapted to it straight away’. Pitting directly across from Evans, Maifield summed up his 2WD performance as ‘fine’, issues with his 4WD clearly occupying his thoughts.

Tessmann summed up practice as ‘pretty good’. Having made little changes to his D216 over the three rounds, the Canadian said they are ‘making progress’.  In P3 he said the car suffered from push and they needed to try something for the first race tomorrow to get more steering.  Waiting for the handout JConcepts tyres to break in, the 1:8 World Champion said with the tyre wear different every year at this race it is hard to predict when they will come good.

Multiple Reedy Race Champion Cavalieri said his B5M ‘got better every run’ despite the fact he ‘did change anything on the car’.  With the ‘grip getting better’, the former World Champion said this was helping his car come around to the track.  With drivers getting to do a practice start at the end of their third practice, he said ‘the end of the straight feels more narrow’ and ‘there are some sketchy spots going through the jumps with everyone together’.

‘Going good’ was Numedahl reaction to setting the 5th fastest time. Describing his car as ‘really easy to drive’, the B5M designer said he would like to get a bit more steering for tomorrow.  Changing the front wing position from the top to the bottom of the shock tower, he said he wasn’t sure he liked the change and will go back to the top for racing.  Having felt he needed more power for the triples, he said increasing the power settings on his Reedy speedo had helped with the jumps but he said now at the end of the straight if he misses his entry the car is going to end up in the wall.

Having not been happy with his performance after the first two practices, Tebo said things were ‘getting better’ adding ‘I think we’ll be good for tomorrow’.  He said while he made small changes to his RB6 the improvement mostly came from the grip getting better.  Asked about how he expected racing to go after his practice start, he said ‘2WD going to be a lot more hectic’ adding ‘you need to drive really square into the triples so the guys behind can really mess you up’.

Top European at the end of 2WD practice would be Polish ace Michal Orlowski.  The factory Schumacher driver said having started out the day with forward traction a ‘really big problem’ so to end up 9th fastest he was ‘so happy’.  Having to completely change his car, including using a kit conversion that moves the motor position 30mm further back in the car, the 14-year-old said now looking for more steering they will switch to a softer front spring.  A star of the Euro Offroad Series and making the final in both 2WD & 4WD at the World Championships in Japan, he said the track here at OCRC is very different to what he is used to but he is enjoying this year’s layout and bigger jumps.

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Hartson sets early pace as drivers wait on traction

Steven Hartson has set the early 2WD pace at the Reedy Race of Champions but it is the low level of traction at OCRC Raceway that’s the big talking point among the invitational class drivers.  Laying down the fastest 3-consecutive laps, as well as the fastest outright lap of 19.197, the Associated driver topped the times ahead of former Open class winner & team-mate Rob Gillespie. Behind them reigning Reedy Race Champion Ryan Maifield completed the Top 3 closely followed by 2WD World Champion Spencer Rivkin.

The home track of the former 4WD World Champion, Hartson was pleased to top the times but said ‘its not easy to drive out there as its super loose’.  With 2WD running a handout gold compound Dirt Webs tyre from JConcepts, he said while the traction usually starts out low the tyres aren’t there yet and that’s making the popular layout difficult. Leaving his B5M unchanged as he waits for the track to come in, he hesitantly said the ‘tyres might be good by the time racing starts’.  Asked about the layout he said, it ‘will be good once the traction comes up’.  While ‘the triple is hard now’ (due to the low traction), he added while ‘its a fun layout’ if the traction doesn’t improve the 2WD racing is ‘going to suck’.

While ‘everyone is fighting the loose track right now’, Gillespie summed up his own performance as ‘so far so good’.  Looking for more overall traction, the 23-year-old is planning a rear shock set-up change on his B5M for the third & final round of practice saying he would ‘see what we can get out of it’ with that change.

Describing his TLR22 as ‘fine’, Maifield said with the track still loose his focus was just on getting his tyres scrubbed in for racing.  Making no changes to the car set-up he said he had to believe that the set-up is going to be correct for when the traction comes up.  Team Losi Racing team-mate Dakotah Phend would set the 7th fastest time.  The 18-year-old said with the ‘track slippery’ he was ‘not doing too much to the car’ and instead using the track time to break in tyres while waiting for track to come to it.  Describing the layout as ‘a lot of fun’, he feels with ‘no big jumps last year’ making it difficult to pass once the driver in front drove clean’ this year he said the bigger jumps add opportunities for making passes.

‘Going really well. Making all the jumps and not crashing’, that was how Rivkin summed up his second 2WD practice run.  ‘Not doing anything’ to his Reedy powered B5M, the 17-year-old said the layout was ‘awesome’ and he liked how it was ‘a little more difficult’ than last year adding it would ‘show the drivers from the squid’. Team-mate Ryan Cavalieri would post the 5th fastest time.  A three time Reedy Race winner, he said he had a couple of mistakes over the run but with the tyres coming in it would make it easier to judge the rights lines in the final practice.

Completing the Top 6 after two rounds of practice, Team Associated designer Kody Numedahl said his B5M was ‘easy to drive’. Running Reedy electrics which he said he normally runs with ‘tame’ power settings he feels he might need to add a ‘tiny bit more power’.  While the car has good speed on the straight he said the extra power would help at the triples.  Commenting on the track, Numedahl, who has home track advantage, said the layout is ‘so different to normal and so much faster’.  About 2-seconds a lap faster than a regular OCRC layout, he said the sweeper is going to be interesting when the grip comes up, predicting some cars ending up ‘out of the track’.

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