Video – 2wd Qualifying Rd4

Phend claims first overall Cactus TQ

Dakotah Phend has claimed his first overall Buggy TQ at the Pro-Line Cactus Classic, the Team Losi Racing driver recovering from two crashes to take his second TQ run of the day in the fourth & final qualifier ahead of Travis Amezcua and Ty Tessmann.  A three way battle to become Top Qualifier of the 28th running of the presitigious race it ended up being a bad last round for Jared Tebo and Ryan Maifield.  Having TQ’d Q1 yesterday, Tebo looked to be the benefactor of Phend’s mistakes until he crashed on the last lap dropping him back to seventh.  Fastest  in Q2, Maifield was running on pace with Phend until he crashed, the Arizona driver’s run going downhill from there including his B5M leaving the track at the uphill section.  Despite finishing 15th, Maifield will start 2nd on the grid followed by Associated team-mate Ryan Cavalieri and defending champion Tebo.

Having not even made the A-Main 12-months ago, Phend was pleased to secure his first overall TQ agreeing he made the task a little harder than he needed to.  Claiming both mistakes as pure driver errors, the US National Champion said his Pro-Line equipped TLR22 was really good.  Starting out front tomorrow the 17-year-old said passing will only be possible through mistakes and his aim is to keep it clean and just run his own race.

‘Threw it all away on the last lap’ was how Tebo summed up the final qualifier. Having had a bad Q2 and only 9th in Q3, the World Champion said he went into the heat looking to ‘just put in a safe run’.  Hearing he was close to the TQ time he pushed harder but ultimately pushed too hard.  ‘Bummed about the crash’, he said he got lucky with his grid position as he took the three way tie break for 4th position.  Struggling a little with the rear end feel of his RB6 he said it kept ‘dumping abruptly’ and he needs to sort that for tomorrow. Commenting on what he expects from the finals he said ‘everyone is going to crash so I’ve got a shot’.

Needing a good run in the final qualifier to make the A-Main, Team Novak’s Billy Fischer took a fourth for the round saying he ‘finally got it together’.  Running an Associated C4.2 Centro, he said fifth on the grid is his best result for some time and finally he didn’t come of the worst of a tie break. While he doesn’t believe he can win, one of offroad racing’s colourful characters said anything can happen.

2WD Buggy A-Main Grid
(11th driver to bump up from B-Main)
1. Dakotah Phend – TLR – 0 pts
2. Ryan Maifield – Associated – 2
3. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 6
4. Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 7
5. Billy Fischer – Associated – 7
6. Travis Amezcua – Durango – 7
7. Dustin Evans – TLR – 9
8. Ryan Lutz – Durango – 9
9. Spencer Rivkin – Associated – 10
10.Ty Tessmann – HB – 12

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Neumann takes overall TQ at Cactus

Joern Neumann is Top Qualifier of 4WD Buggy at the Pro-Line Cactus Classic, the Team Durango driver becoming the first European to secure the honour at America’s longest running international offroad event.  The 28th running of the race, Neumann topped the final qualification ranking thanks to his two TQ runs in yesterday’s qualifying.  With only Jared Tebo able to deny the German in the final qualifier, Dakotah Phend prevented that from happening as he claimed the final qualifier ahead Tebo and Neumann.  Tebo will line up second on tomorrow’s A-Main grid with Phend third and defending Champion Ryan Maifield fourth.

Finding the starting order of the final heat a little confusing, expecting to start first as the points leader rather than his Q3 finishing position of 7th, Neumann said he was pleased with his final run and at becoming the first European to TQ in Buggy.  Planning only a new set of tyres for the finals saying his Orion powered DEX410 is working really well, he said the only thing he will do different is to scrub his Pro-Line tyres in more, feeling they were still a little too fresh for the first few laps of the final qualifying.  Asked about the racing,  the World Championship Top Qualifier said the track will make passing difficult and so his plan for the race is to just try to make no mistakes and hope those behind him do.  Having finished 3rd in 2012 and second last year, he said he hopes he can continue his upward trend and complete the full set of steps on the podium.

Suffering a roll over on his first lap through the uphill section, Tebo said he ‘lost (his) shot at the overall TQ right there’.  Apart from this he said his prototype ZX6 felt really good adding he couldn’t be happier with how it is running.  Expecting a pass will only possible if Neumann makes a mistake he said his plan for the race is to ‘stay right with him and pressure him into a mistake’.

Having secured his first buggy TQ run of the event this morning in 2WD, Phend was happy to back it up with his first 4WD TQ.  The 17-year-old said after a good start to the run he just reverted to keeping the rest of the 5-minutes free of mistakes and he was happy with how that turned out.  Planning to try a few ideas with his TLR22-4 set-up in the morning’s open practice, he said while the track is going to be hard to pass on it is inevitable that all drivers will have at least bobbles if not mistakes so its all to play for.

Chasing a fourth consecutive win in 4WD Buggy, Maifield joked ‘coming through’ when asked about his 4th place on the grid.  Commenting that the ‘track will make for interesting races’ he said any of the top half of the grid has a shot at the win.  Admitting his rivals could run at a little faster pace in qualifying, he said pushing that hard is going to be too aggressive for a final.  The Arizona ace also said today Neumann didn’t appear to be as ‘super smooth’ as he was yesterday and so he is confident the race will be wide open.

Set to start fifth on the grid Ty Tessmann said changes to his HB D4-13 made it better and ‘it was all going well until (he) crashed’.  Feeling he is ready for tomorrow’s finals, the US National Champion said mistakes will be the only way a pass is possible and his aim is to force those ahead of him into such mistakes adding hopefully he can do that without ending up hitting any of them.

4WD Buggy A-Main Grid
(11th driver to bump up from B-Main)
1. Joern Neumann – Durango – 0 pts
2. Jared Tebo – Kyosho – 2
3. Dakotah Phend – TLR – 3
4. Ryan Maifield – Associated – 5
5. Ty Tessmann – HB – 6
6. Ryan Cavalieri – Associated – 7
7. Billy Fischer – Associated – 10
8. Carson Wernimont – Schumacher – 13
9. Daimon Borkowicz – Associated – 15
10.Ryan Lutz – Durango – 16

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Champion Cavalieri TQs 2WD short Course

Defending Champion Ryan Cavalieri put himself in the best position possible to defend his Pro-Line Cactus Classic 2WD Short Course title as he TQ’d the final round of qualifying to secure the honour of Top Qualifier.  Having topped Q1 & 3, only Associated team-mate Ryan Maifield could deny him the No.1 one starting position on the tricky SRS Raceway but the local hero could only manage second in Q4, the position last year’s Top Qualifier will start tomorrow’s triple A-Mains.  TLR’s Chris Wheeler will line-up third with Durango’s Travis Amezcua fourth,  young gun Spencer Rivkin fifth and Dustin Evans sixth.

While he already secured the TQ honours for Mod Truck in Q3, Jared Tebo completed a clean sweep of qualifying with another fastest time in the fourth & final qualifier.  Behind the Kyosho driver, Joern Neumann will start second with his prototype Durango with last year’s Top Qualifier Cavalieri third, Billy Fischer fourth and 4WD Buggy World Champion Steven Hartson fifth.

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Chassis Focus – Ryan Cavalieri

Chassis: Team Associated RC10 B5M
Motor: Team Orion 6.5T VST
Batteries: Team Orion 5500 saddle
ESC: Team Orion Vortex R10
Body: JConcepts Silencer
Tires FR/RR: Pro-Line Scrubs X2 / Suburbs X2
Radio/Servo: Airtronics M12 / Airtronics 94971

Chassis: Team Associated RC10 B44.2
Motor: Team Orion 5.5T VST
Batteries: Team Orion 5500 saddle
ESC: Team Orion Vortex R10
Body: JConcepts Finnisher X-Flow
Tires FR/RR: Pro-Line Scrubs X2 / Suburbs X2
Radio/Servo: Airtronics M12 / Airtronics 94971

Chassis: Team Associated T4.2
Motor: Team Orion 6.5T VST
Batteries: Team Orion 4000 VTS
ESC: Team Orion Vortex R10
Body: JConcepts Finnisher T4.2
Tires FR/RR: Pro-Line Ions X2
Radio/Servo: Airtronics M12 / Airtronics 94931

Chassis: Team Associated Sc10.2
Motor: Team Orion 7.5T VST
Batteries: Team Orion 4000 VTS
ESC: Team Orion Vortex R10
Body: JConcepts H-Flow SCT body
Tires FR/RR: AKA Gridirons Soft / Typo Soft
Radio/Servo: Airtronics M12 / Airtronics 94971

Remarks – The 4-time World Champion has been working through the event to get his cars less edgy. On his 4wd buggy he has added a front sway bar and gone up half a weight on the rear shocks going from 30wt to 32.5wt, something he has also done to the rear of his 2wd buggy. On his Short Course truck he is using the B-Hub towers which feature a wider top hole mount than the standard tower which when used allows the car to roll through the corners better. On his truck which has had the most amount of work to get it working he moved the upper rear link out on both the rear brace and the hub. He also changed the front pistons from 1.5mm hole to 1.6mm, to match the rear shocks, and moved the shocks on the front to the top mounting hole. Finally he moved his speedo from on top of the battery brace to its standard position to make the car roll less.

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