Maifield struggles into Main event at DNC

Reigning Dirt Nitro Challenge Buggy Champion Ryan Maifield will progress to the deciding race of the 15th running of the world famous event but having only finished second in between the Xray’s of RC America team-drivers Tyler Vik and Josh Wheeler, the Associated driver’s chances of defending his title are looking somewhat of a tall order for the Arizona ace. Debuting a prototype of Associated’s new RC8 platform at the event,  Maifield had a difficult qualifying ending up only 13th fastest overall leaving him on pole for the B-Main.  While Maifield led the 15-car field for the first 6 laps of the 20-minute encounter, Vik would move to the front on lap 7 leaving Maifield to battle for the race with Wheeler.  With both Tyler and Wheeler posting 44-second fastest laps, the best Maifield could manage would be a 45.150.  Commenting on the race a clearly unhappy Maifield kept it brief saying it was ‘going to be a long final’.

With six of last year’s DNC Buggy finalist finding themselves in the B-Main, the race would be the end of the road for four of them.  Starting second, Serpent’s Mike Truhe would fall down the order after a number of rough laps and while he recovered back to fourth he would flame out on the final lap to finish 5th.  TLR’s Adam Drake who qualified 3rd for last years A-Main would also suffer a flame out leaving the reigning US National Champion 11th.  The fourth place qualifier 12-months ago, World Championship Top Qualifier Elliot Boots lasted just 3 laps before retiring, stripping the clutch gearing on his Kyosho.  The other of the 2013 finalists who wont make up one of the 15 grid spots for this year’s 45-minute main were TLR’s Billy Fischer who would only finish 7th behind Team Durango’s Joern Neumann, the German having a tough 5 days at the DNC.

Buggy A-Main Grid
1. Dakotah Phend – TLR/Orion
2. Ty Tessmann – HB/OS Speed
3. Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion
4. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion
5. Carson Wernimont – Mugen/OS Speed
6. Cody King – Kyosho/Reds Racing
7. Barry Pettit – Mugen/OS Speed
8. Renaud Savoya – Xray/Orion
9. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated/Orion
10.Taylor Petersen – Mugen/Novarossi
11.Austin Blair – Kyosho/RB
12.Ryan Lutz – Durango/Alpha
13.Tyler Vik – Xray/FX
14.Ryan Maifield – Associated/Novarossi
15.Josh Wheeler – Xray/OS Speed

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‘From Race Control’ – Day 5 Buggy Mains

We have reached the last day of the 15th running of the Dirt Nitro Challenge with the most coveted of the titles up for grabs at Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen’s  signature event to decided in the final race of the day.  28 races make up the schedule on what is another blue sky day at the Fear Farm with particular interest in Race 24, the B-Main. 2013 Buggy Champion Ryan Maifield is on pole for the 20-minute encounter after a difficult qualifying on Friday and will need a Top 3 finish if he is to progress to the 45-minute A-Main and have a chance of defending his title.

Tessmann makes it 3 in a row at DNC

HB’s Ty Tessmann gave his rivals a master class in Truggy driving at the 15th Annual Dirt Nitro Challenge as he claimed the title for the third year in succession at the Fear Farm, becoming the first driver to ever to do so at Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen signature event.  Top Qualifier for the 45-minute race, the Canadian ace dominated proceedings leading from start to finish however an extremely impressive drive by Mugen’s Barry Pettit meant the US National Champion couldn’t let up until the last round of fuel stops.  In the end Tessmann would win by 11.580-seconds over Pettit with Dakotah Phend completing the podium after coming out on top of an intense battle with former champion Jared Tebo.

The official race debut for the ‘Ty Tessmann edition’ of HB’s D8T, Tessmann said the final started ‘good’ and with ‘everyone crashing’ he was able to pull out an early gap but a number of rough laps through the woops section allowed the hard charging Pettit, who started 9th on the grid, to close the gap.  With the gap down to 1-second at one point, Tessmann was able to see off the challenge but it wasn’t until Pettit’s final & late fuel stop that Tessmann could switch to cruise mode.  Looking as though Tessmann had the advantage of one less stop over Pettit, his father Gord said they didn’t but changing their strategy after the first stop they were just able to run long on their final stop.

‘Extremely happy’ was how Pettit summed up his feelings after what many knowledgeable onlookers described as the drive of the race.  The 21-year-old, who was ‘just happy to be in the main’, said he got lucky at the start with getting through traffic.  Describing his OS Speed powered MBX6TR as ‘so good’ adding he ‘didn’t have to fight it’ to go fast, he said with a huge grin that he really enjoyed the race and the fact he was able to ‘run with the 2-time champion’. Set to start the Buggy A-Main from 7th on the grid, he said tonight’s result is ‘for sure good motivation for tomorrow’.

Phend said considering the bad start he had to the race he was happy to finish on the podium but added considering how well his TLR 8ight T 3.0 ran he ‘know(s) (he) could have done better’.  The 17-year-old, who started 4th on the gird but found himself 9th after the start, swapped position back & forth with the Kyosho of Tebo in a battle he described as ‘a lot of fun.’  Eventually he would lock in the podium position on the penultimate lap after getting by the 2011 Champion.

Setting the fastest lap of the race, being the only driver to do a 42 second lap of the challenging track, Drew Moller was another driver to impress during the race.  The Mugen driver  would battle for second with Mugen team-mate Pettit for many laps before dropping back to fifth by the finish. His first big nitro race for his new chassis sponsor, the  17-year said for the first 15-minutes of the race his Novarossi powered  MBX6TR was ‘awesome’ but after that the servo saver started to go soft making the truggy ‘a little difficult’.  Holding off 2010 World Champion Cody King, he said compared to this time last year he was ‘a lot happier’.

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