‘From Race Control’ – Day 4, Qualifying

Yet another overcast but hot & humid morning at Thornhill Racing Circuit, today’s schedule sees the conclusion of qualifying at the 17th running of US National Championships. Two rounds of qualifying are on the cards for Day 4 of the event with the best 2 of 4 of the qual points rounds to count towards the starting order of tomorrow’s finals.  Yesterday saw an impressive performance from TLR’s Dakotah Phend as he took both Truggy qualifiers and the second of the Buggy qualifiers with HB’s Ty Tessmann taking the first round.

Phend holds overnight TQ at US Nationals

Dakotah Phend leaves the Thornhill Racing Circuit as the overnight provisional TQ holder of both Truggy and Buggy after concluding the opening day of qualifying with his first TQ run in buggy. Having topped both Truggy qualifiers, the 17-year-old would transfer that form to buggy topping the day’s final heat as he became the first driver to run a 10-lap pace in the championship’s premiere class. Third fastest in Q1, Phend topped the Q2 timesheets from another of the country’s young guns with Carson Wernimont taking his Mugen to the second fastest time. Having struggled in the opening qualifier, former Champion Ryan Maifield would take his Associated to the third fastest time while for defending Champion Adam Drake it was again a slow run as he posted only the 15th fastest time.

‘It’s been a really good day’ was how Phend summed up the first day of qualifying. Top Qualifier at last year’s championship but retiring in the Semi Finals, he said the track was really rough second time round. Realising during his warm-up laps how tricky conditions had become, he said he took the approach to ‘stay smooth’ so as to avoid any mistakes adding that for the entire 7-minutes he was just ‘trying to hold on to it’. Happy with how his 8ight handled the conditions, he said the 180 corners had become particularly difficult as the surface had ‘chunks missing out of it’ which he said when you hit them would ‘grab’ and unsettle the buggy. Setting a new fastest lap in Q2, the Michigan driver said for tomorrow he will leave the buggy unchanged with tyre compound the only thing he needs to consider.

Making some small changes to the front suspension on his MBX7, Wernimont said it made the buggy really smooth and easy to drive. Running a bodyshell of his own design which he will be releasing for general sale shortly, he said his buggy is setting up to be ‘a good main car’. Running soft AKA Enduro for Q2 he will switch his attentions tomorrow to working on a tyre for the Semi finals.  Planning to try a medium compound Impact, he said he wants to check for wear as well as seeing if the buggy is ‘happy on the tire’.

Maifield said his improved performance came from simply reverting back to the tyre he did all his testing for the race with and used at the Warm-up race. Running Q2 on JConcept’s blue compound Crossbow tyre with his Novarossi powered RC8.2, he said while they took a minute to come in, after that the ‘felt pretty good’. With ‘no real mistakes’ over the run, the 2006 Champion said it was a decent run and hopes to build on that tomorrow in the remaining two qualifiers.

Fourth fastest, Tebo said his Kyosho MP9 was really good but he threw away a potential P2 10-lap run with a late mistake. Admitting ‘Dakotah (was) a little faster’, on his penultimate lap he jumped too much to the outside on the back straight leading to a crash that would cost him in the region of 3-seconds. Describing the track as ‘just nearly out there’ the 2010 champion said his buggy ‘feels really good’ adding it would be ‘silly to make changes’. Instead he said he wants to grow his confidence with how the car is now as the finals are going to be tough going if you’re not.

Fastest in the opening qualifier, Ty Tessmann said they took a gamble and tried something others didn’t but it wasn’t good. Having run Pro-Line’s X2 Blockade, for Q2 they tried M3 compound which the Canadian said for the first few laps worked well, but the performance of its slightly softer compound went down really fast. Planning to leave his D812 set-up the same for tomorrow, the 2012 Champion said they will just try to choose a better tyre adding what that will be they will decide nearer the time of the run.

Team Associated’s Ryan Cavalieri would complete the Top 6. Changing the front springs on his RC8.2, the 2011 Champion said the feeling it gave was ‘not what (he) was expecting’. Pleased though that he is headed in the right direction in terms of the set-up, for Q3 he will go for an even stiffer spring.

Having impressed yesterday with his pace topping seeding practice, it wasn’t a good day for Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz. 10th in Q1 after issues with the traffic, he would suffer a DNF in the second round. Running a Top 5 pace, trying to save a mistake into the corner leading onto the front straight, he ‘gunned the throttle’ but with his DNX8 Prototype landing on its roof the engine sucked in air causing the engine to flame out as it was placed back on its wheels. Happy with how the buggy was running, Lutz will be hoping for better luck tomorrow.

Q2 Buggy times – Top 10
1. Dakotah Phend – TLR/Orion – 10/7:44.783
2. Carson Wernimont – Mugen/OS Speed – 9/7:01.576
3. Ryan Maifield – Associated/Novarossi – 9/7:01.661
4. Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion – 9/7:05.601
5. Ty Tessmann – HB/OS Speed – 9/7:07.504
6. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated/Orion – 9/7:07.560
7. Billy Fischer – TLR/Novarossi – 9/7:07.851
8. Michael Truhe – Serpent/TOP – 9/7:08.658
9. Jeremy Kortz – Agama/Werks – 9/7:09.281
10.Barry Pettit – Mugen/OS Speed – 9/7:09.848

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Another TQ run for Phend

Dakotah Phend repeated his opening qualifying performance at the US National Championships making it two out of two in the truggy class as he again set the TQ pace. A slightly slower run than the morning, the second qualifier would be a repeat of the Q1 Top 3 with the Team Losi Racing driver again fastest from the HB of Ty Tessmann and the Mugen of Carson Wernimont. The biggest improvement of the round would come from Serpent’s Mike Truhe who having being 10th in Q1 would post the 4th fastest time.

‘Not too bad’ was Phend’s reaction to his second TQ run. The 17-year-old said overall the run was good but he had a couple of bobbles that cost him time.  Admitting to one being of his own doing, he said two of them were the result of him trying to avoid other trucks. Very happy with the performance of his Orion powered 8ight T, which was again fitted with Pro-Line X3 Holeshot tyre, he plans to leave everything the same for tomorrow’s concluding two qualifiers.

Setting the fastest lap of the round, bettering the one set by Phend in Q1, Tessmann said all his equipment was good but he just made ‘too many mistakes’.  While track conditions are ‘hard’, his father Gord complimenting the Thornhill Racing Circuit track team on how well they have maintained the track so far, the defending champion said the errors were simply down to the driver.  Hitting the piping causing his OS Speed powered D8T to spin out, he would also get it wrong at the track centre jump.  Having ran error free in the two days of practice, the Canadian hopes tomorrow he will return to that form.

Wernimont was happy to repeat his 3rd from Q1 saying now that he had two solid runs ‘now can have some fun’ – the Truggy qualifying being direct to final rather than using Semi-finals.  Having made a ‘couple tweaks’ to the front end of his OS Speed powered MBX7T, he said this allowed him to run with Phend & Tessmann on pace at the start of the heat but then he started to drop back.  For Q3, he said he plans to sleep on it first and then decide if he want to ‘try anything crazy’.

Having crashed in Q1 resulting in the loss of over 3-seconds, Truhe was happy with his second qualifier saying the field is ‘so close’.  Changing the front camber link on his TOP engined 811T, he said this ‘worked out well’ as it made the truck roll through the corners more. Looking ahead to tomorrow’s Q3, he said he had a few ideas he is considering trying but will wait to see how the track is first and whether or not there will be a round of untimed practice in the morning.

Changing to thicker shock oil all round in his Associated RC8T, Ryan Cavalieri said Q2 went a lot better.  Setting the 5th fastest time having failed to make the Top 10 in the morning, he said the change made the truck ‘a lot more balanced’.  Happy with how it felt, the multiple electric offroad World Champion said he will leave it as is for Q3.

Factory Team Associated team-mate Ryan Maifield, the most winning driver of the truggy class having held the title three times, completed the Top 6. Last winning the title in 2011, he said Q2 was better than the first one but having made a number of changes to his truck it was hard to get used to them and he had ‘a couple of bad laps’.  Able to run some decent laps at the end, he is hoping for further improvement tomorrow.

Q2 Truggy times – Top 10
1. Dakotah Phend – TLR/Orion – 10/7:35.721
2. Ty Tessmann – HB/OS Speed – 10/7:37.245
3. Carson Wernimont – Mugen/OS Speed – 10/7:38.769
4. Michael Truhe – Serpent/TOP – 10/7:43.076
5. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated/Orion – 10/7:43.250
6. Ryan Maifield – Associated/Novarossi – 10/7:44.372
7. Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion – 10/7:45.744
8. Josh Wheeler – Xray/OS Speed – 10/7:46.115
9. Curtis Door – Mugen/Orion – 9/7:00.459
10.Josh Glancy – TLR – 9/7:01.526

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