January 26, 2014

Action packed finish to Reedy Race Day 3

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The second round of 4WD at the Reedy Race of Champions would prove to be the most action packed of the day with Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield bouncing back from his Round 1 woes to win a star studded Heat 1 while a controversial Heat 3 would go to TLR ace Dakotah Phend.  Winner of the 5th round of 2WD, Travis Amezcua claimed the tamest of the 3 encounters taking Heat 2 from Round 1 winner Neil Cragg. The results leave defending Champion Ryan Cavalieri holding the points lead two clear of Dustin Evans with Maifield a further point adrift. With four races left on the schedule, going into the final day of the 20th running of the event it’s still wide open as to who will be crowned champion at OCRC Raceway tomorrow in California.

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With big guns Maifield, Cavalieri, Evans and Jared Tebo lining up on the grid for Heat 1 the anticipation for the race was high and it didn’t disappoint.  Starting on pole position was new Schumacher signing Carson Wernimont and the teenager would put in a impressive performance holding off Dustin Evans for 4 laps and then retaking the lead back again when the TLR driver got it wrong on the step down 5 laps later.  During his roll Evans’ 22-4 collected the B44.2 of Cavalieri allowing Maifield to have a go at Wernimont getting by to lead the closely packed top 4.  After a few laps Cavalieri got up to second while unfortunately Wernimont and Evans tangled.  With the Associated pairing now clear the race between the two Ryans was full on however Maifield would hold on for a popular .251 second win while further back Wernimont held on for a well deserved 3rd ahead of Evans.

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In Heat 2, starting from pole Amezcua would take a tone to tone win but the race wasn’t without incident for the Team Durango driver. Pressured by 1992 Reedy Race Champion Rick Hohwart for the opening laps the two would collide in the air at the double on lap 5. While Amezcua managed to recover maintaining his lead the incident began a series of incidents that would see Hohwart eventually finish 9th. While Amezcua would run the rest of the race untroubled the battle was now on for second between Joseph Quagraine and Neil Cragg, the British driver all over the prototype JQ car. On lap 11 Quagraine would get out of shape and roll allowing former World Champion Cragg through to second were he would stay til the end finishing 3.1 seconds behind the leader.  World Champion and local hero Steven Hartson completed the Top 3.

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Heat 3 started out with Phend making a good start from second on the grid to drive around the outside of pole starter Cody Turner. Holding a comfortable lead over the battling Marc Rheinard and Joern Neumann the teenager would roll his TLR22-4 needing to be marshalled allowing the German pairing through to the front.  Hitting the back of Rheinard’s Tamiya, Neumann would lose position to Phend who then set about reeling in the touring car ace.  Then Phend would get out of shape hitting the rear of Rheinard putting him off line and causing 3-time Touring Car World Champion to rollover.  This let Neumann back to the front with Phend second and Ty Tessmann third.  Tessmann would force his way up to second getting down the inside of Phend at the end of the step down on the penultimate lap. Airing out the Double Double Tessmann made contact with the back of Neumann at the following 180, spinning around the 2012 Champion.  The Canadian waited on the multiple European Champion but this left Phend through for the win with Tessman getting down the inside of the last corner to snatch second from Neumann.  With the result protested, officials watched the video after which they decided to take no action and the results were declared official.

Round 2 4WD Buggy
Heat 1 Result
1.(6) Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – 16/5:04.107
2.(8) Ryan Cavalieri – Team Associated – 16/5:04.358
3.(1) Carson Wernimont – Schumacher – 16/5:06.977
4.(3) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 16/5:07.579
5.(4) Billy Fischer – Team Novak – 16/5:16.517
6.(2) Brian Kinwald – Team Associated – 16/5:17.596
7.(9) Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 15/4:52.867
8.(7) Josh Pain – Team Yokomo – 15/5:01.397
9.(6) Tanner Denney – Team Associated – 6/1:45.935
10.(8)Oliver Scholz – Team C – 6/2:03.187

Heat 2 Result
1.(1) Travis Amezcua – Team Durango – 16/5:06.191
2.(7) Neil Cragg – Team Associated – 16/5:09.379
3.(5) Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 16/5:10.226
4.(6) Ryan Lutz – Team Durango – 16/5:11.324
5.(3) Joseph Quagraine – JQ Products – 16/5:12.343
6.(9) Kody Numedahl – Team Associated – 16/5:12.897
7.(4) Cody King – Kyosho – 16/5:17.076
8.(8) Brian Strange – Team Associated – 16/5:19.302
9.(2) Rick Hohwart – Team Associated – 16/5:22.541
10.(10)Mike Truhe – Serpent – 15/5:04.492

Heat 3 Result
1.(2) Dakotah Phend – Team Losi Racing – 16/5:09.017
2.(9) Ty Tessmann – Hot Bodies – 16/5:09.348
3.(3) Jörn Neumann – Team Durango – 16/5:10.808
4.(4) Marc Rheinard – Tamiya – 16/5:11.301
5.(10)Lee Martin – Team Yokomo – 16/5:11.611
6.(6) Tyler Vik – Xray – 16/5:16.353
7.(2) Rob Gillespie – Team Associated – 15/5:03.803
8.(1) Cody Turner – Kyosho – 15/5:19.386
9.(8) Christoffer Svensson – Kyosho – 13/4:15.042
10.(5)Barry Baker – Team Reedy – 6/2:03.078

View the complete Reedy Race of Champions event heat listing here (PDF).

View our event image gallery here.

January 26, 2014

Chassis Focus – Ty Tessmann

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Car: Hot Bodies D413
Motor: Orion 5.5
ESC: Orion
Batteries: Orion
Radio/Servo: Airtronics/Savox

Hot Bodies sole representative here at OCRC Raceway, Ty Tessmann is running a car that sports a couple of interesting items over the car that Ty used at the Worlds back in November, such as one piece machined shock caps to help with the ease of building the buggy’s suspension and a prototype rear inner-link plate both made by Pro-Line with latter possibly becoming an option part from HB when the car is finally released. According to the Canadian, with the track being very demanding in terms of steering due to the abundance of 180° corners and sharp turns, he has changed the wheelbase on his D413 making it shorter, and played with the camber link to create more steering.

Image Gallery

January 26, 2014

Reedy Race drama as Maifield misses first 4WD encounter

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There was drama during the first round of 4WD action at the Reedy Race of Champions as points leader Ryan Maifield failed to make the start of his heat.  The points leader after 2WD, having not finished lower than second over his 6 races, the Team Associated driver suffered a rear drive shaft failure during his warm-up laps.  While he returned to the pits to try and fix the car the race went ahead without the No.9 starting B44.2.  That heat would go the way of team-mate Neil Cragg while the other two heats would be won by HB’s Ty Tessmann and Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz marking their first wins of the 20th running of the event.

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Starting Heat 1 from 3rd on the grid, Lutz had an easy passage to the front as the drivers starting ahead of him both made mistakes.  Getting by the No.2 starting Associated of Rob Gillespie when the 21-year-old made a mistake on lap 4, one lap later he took over the lead as pole sitter Josh Pain spectacularly rolled his Yokomo half way across the track at the option corner.  Once in front Lutz was able to open up a lead but coming from 8th on the grid Lee Martin closed in on the American setting the stage for an exciting finish.  Posting the fastest lap of the race, a late bobble by the British Team Yokomo driver would give Lutz enough breathing space to hold on for a 1.8 second victory with Tanner Denney a distant third.  Getting up to 4th from 10th on the grid and having a good battle with offroad legend Brian Kinwald, Kyosho’s Jared Tebo was another big name driver to collect the unenviable 10 points as his car powered off on the landing off the Double Double.  Caused by a motor wire catching the switch, while they were able to turn the power back on the rules of the Reedy Race is that once a driver pulls off they are not allowed to rejoin.

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Heat 2 was a pretty straight forward affair for Cragg although in the closing laps he did start to come under pressure from World Champion steven Hartson. Starting from second on the grid, the British driver led from the opening lap while starting from last Hartson came through the high quality field to within .245 of him by the finish.  Behind former Reedy Race winner Dustin Evans and reigning Champion Ryan Cavalieri had a fraught race recovering from a bad start that left them at the back of the field to finish 3rd and 4th respectively.

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Heat 3 produced the most convincing winner as Tessmann cruised to a 4-second victory over the Tamiya of touring car ace Marc Rheinard.  From the back row of the grid 2WD heat winner Dakotah Phend completed the Top 3.

Round 1 4WD Buggy
Heat 1 Result
1.(3) Ryan Lutz – Team Durango – 16/5:07.026
2.(8) Lee Martin – Team Yokomo – 16/5:08.883
3.(6) Tanner Denney – Team Associated – 16/5:14.784
4.(5) Tyler Vik – Xray – 16/5:15.296
5.(4) Christoffer Svensson – Kyosho – 16/5:15.901
6.(9) Rick Hohwart – Team Associated – 16/5:18.741
7.(1) Josh Pain – Team Yokomo – 16/5:20.619
8.(8) Brian Kinwald – Team Associated – 10/3:23.713
9.(2) Rob Gillespie – Team Associated – 5/1:40.338
10.(10)Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 4/1:20.120

Heat 2 Result
1.(2) Neil Cragg – Team Associated – 16/5:08.904
2.(10)Steven Hartson – Team Associated – 16/5:09.149
3.(4) Dustin Evans – Team Losi Racing – 16/5:11.286
4.(3) Ryan Cavalieri – Team Associated – 16/5:11.931
5.(7) Mike Truhe – Serpent – 16/5:16.646
6.(8) Oliver Scholz – Team C – 15/5:01.592
7.(6) Joseph Quagraine – JQ Products – 15/5:01.865
8.(5) Jörn Neumann – Team Durango – 15/5:02.849
9.(1) Brian Strange – Team Associated – 15/5:05.829
10.(9)Ryan Maifield – Team Associated – DNS

Heat 3 Result
1.(1) Ty Tessmann – Hot Bodies – 16/5:05.230
2.(6) Marc Rheinard – Tamiya – 16/5:09.221
3.(9) Dakotah Phend – Team Losi Racing – 16/5:11.336
4.(8) Carson Wernimont – Schumacher – 16/5:15.120
5.(3) Cody King – Kyosho – 16/5:17.917
6.(5) Kody Numedahl – Team Associated – 16/5:18.383
7.(10)Travis Amezcua – Team Durango – 15/5:03.247
8.(7) Cody Turner – Kyosho – 15/5:27.715
9.(2) Billy Fischer – Team Novak – 14/4:41.628
10.(4)Barry Baker – Team Reedy – 14/5:00.867

View the complete Reedy Race of Champions event heat listing here (PDF).

View our event image gallery here.