Drivers try to find their ‘rhythm’ at DNC

With the first of two rounds of practice that make up the opening day of the action at the 15th running of The Dirt Nitro Challenge completed, Joey Christensen’s 9-pack element of the track seems to the biggest focus of attention for the top drivers as they try to find their rhythm through the challenging section.  With no official timing being issued for the round which took 7-hours to complete, leaving drivers uncertain of where they are in relation to their rivals, most declared the first round of practice a track cleaning exercise and opportunity to shakedown their equipment.

For defending buggy champion Ryan Maifield the event marks two significant debuts as he together with Ryan Cavalieri is running a prototype of Team Associated’s all new RC8 platform and is also making his race debut for new engine sponsor Novarossi.  Maifield said his new buggy ‘felt good’ with it ‘planted’ in the corners and ‘jump(ing) extremely easy’.  While he has done some testing with the new chassis ahead of the event he said how well it jumps without the effort required with the old car he said its going to take a bit of time and adjusting of his driving to get used to it.  As a result of this he is struggling with his timing in the 9-pack rhythm section, the key to a quick lap of the 45-sec lap track. In addition to having to work with a new car he is also having to adapt to the feeling of the new engines but said they ‘feel good’ and overall for a first run out he is pleased with how everything went.

Cavalieri said he just used the 7-minute run per class to learn the track adding that the round was ‘kind of useless’ for anything else.  With the practice groups selected at random he said it was hard to get a clean lap of the track.  Commenting on his first impression of the new RC8 he said it was ‘really balanced’ with ‘good corner speed’ while not being ‘too edgy’.  On the 9-pack he said getting the right rhythm through it would make the ‘lap a whole lot easier’.

Ty Tessmann, the defending Truggy Champion who is chasing a third consecutive title, said his new name sake edition truggy was good but added in buggy he struggled a little.  The HB driver plans to use his eBuggy, the electric buggy class running inbetween Truggy and nitro buggy, to test a set-up for his D8 as he expects the track to have grooved up a lot for P2 which will also run in much cooler conditions.  Commenting on the 9-pack the Canadian said the section was the key to the track but he said all his cars were ‘going through there pretty well’.

Last year’s Buggy Top Qualifier and runner-up Jared Tebo heads a strong Kyosho line which again sees European Champion David Ronnefalk and World Championship Top Qualifier Elliott Boots make the trip over from Europe.  Tebo described his first run as ‘pretty good’ adding that he will making little changes to all three cars for P2.  Slowly reverting back to a set-up he said would have been his standard set-up a couple of years ago he said sometimes going back to something turns out to be better.  Together with Ronnefalk, Tebo is running a new Orion pipe this weekend with both drivers liking its low end power delivery.  With Team Orion’s Adrien Bertin making the trip over to support his drivers, the French engine guru said initially the pipe was designed for low grip conditions.  With their engines having a lot of bottom end punch but dropping off in the mid range he said the pipe gives a more linear power band and opting to run it for the first practice he said it looks to work really well for the track layout.  Still needing a little more experience with the pipe he said so far he is very happy with the performance they were seeing.  Having tested them at previous races, both drivers are also this event running bigger cooling heads.   Bertin said testing showed that with them now having to set the engine tune so on the limit, partly in the hunt for optimum fuel economy, the extra cooling has made the tuning a lot more stable.

Ronnefalk who came out to the US early to test ahead of event ran his cars with a standard set-up adjusting just his shock oils to account for the hot daytime conditions.  Pleased with his runs and the fact that he didnt crash during them, he said he is still playing around with his rythm for the 9-pack.  Tryng a triple, triple, single, double he said he found that approach gave him a good line for the following chicane.  Commenting on the new pipe he said said he really liked the feeling which made the ‘bottom end more precise’.  Arriving in yesterday, Boots said his buggies needed some tweaking.  Not running Truggy, the British driver described the middle section as pretty though adding it was ‘no walk in the park’ and ‘you got to get it so perfect every lap’.

Top Qualifier of Truggy last year, Adam Drake said all his cars were ‘overall very good’.  Planning to leave his truggy as is for P2 the US National Buggy Champion will make a caster and tyre change to his buggies to learn how the change effects the cars on a track he described as ‘really fun’.  Describing the 9-pack as ‘good’ he said it is the track’s separating factor between drivers and he likes it.  Having had some issues with it in eBuggy due to the power delivery, he said while he didn’t get it perfect every lap he was comfortable with it.  Young team-mate Dakotah Phend said while the first run ‘just checked everything was ok’ his cars felt ‘really  good’.  With ‘so many more lanes’ this year he said ‘there is a lot going on every lap and really fun to drive’.  He said the Supercross style track is good for spectating too adding that he would like to see more tracks with this type of layout. Like Drake, he felt ‘pretty comfortable’ through the 9-pack adding that while its definitely not easy he believes he is doing a good job of it mainly by not trying to over jump through it.

Xray have again made the trip from Europe with Martin Bayer and Renaud Savoya.  Having not raced nitro for a few months due to the weather in Europe, Bayer came out to the US early to get some mileage under his belt.  While he felt his cars were good he ‘struggled in the woops section’ adding the track had a lot of elements that European’s would not be used to.  Team-mate Renaud Savoya, who previously spent a full season based in the US when he ran for Team Durango, said to look at the track it looks easy but driving it is very different.  ‘Really fun to drive’ he too said his biggest difficulty was the 9-pack.  For the second practice, which for 1:8 nitro buggy will run in the dark, he said in addition to trying to master the woops he will also test different tyre combinations.

Making his first trip to the Fear Farm, former European Champion Darren Bloomfield who for 2014 moved from TLR to Agama said considering they didn’t know where to start out from in terms of set-up the first practice ‘felt alright’.  Joined by top French driver Jerome Sartel, Bloomfield said while all three cars were drivable and he ‘didn’t break a car’ he got caught out by the heat with him all ‘a bit too soft’.  Describing his nitro buggy as the strongest of the three he said as this is his first time to ever run the eBuggy and Truggy there will be a little bit of guessing going on for P2 in terms of set-up changes.

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Track Focus – Fear Farm

Track Name – Fear Farm
Country – USA
Location – Phoenix
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous DNC hosted – Two, 2012 & 2013

This is the 15th annual running of The Dirt Nitro Challenge and to mark the milestone Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen’ has created a track that brings together all the the best elements from his signature event that have proven big hits with racers over the years.  The third year hosting the world famous event at the Fear Farm in Phoenix, Arizona, Christensen said a good weather forecast both leading up to and for the duration of the event gave him the freedom to ‘dig down in to the ground’ without the fear of it filling with water and this has giving him greater scope for creativity and more dirt to work with.

Attracting over 700 1:8 entries, the event also featuring separate tracks for 1:10 and 1:5 which have their own events within the event, he said this year’s event has attracted a lot of ‘Dirt’ first timers all of whom have expectations of the special features that have helped make the event world famous.  Starting out the build last Monday, along with his right hand man Aaron Webb, he said the first element he worked on was to change the straight line section that has traditionally ran across the front of the drivers stand.  From there he said thanks to being able to add lots of elevation changes due to digging deeper into the ground, he was able to include a 9 pack, a step-up and supercross style burms.  Summing up his work having just watched the first cars take to the track, the world’s most famous offroad track builder ‘really likes’ how his 2014 creation turned out adding its ‘challenging but not too hard’.

Building the track he said he wanted to come up with a style of layout that was forgiving but ‘to hit perfect every time still needed a driver to be good.’  While drivers arrived to a great track the building was not without its problems with both his tractor and roller both breaking down but Christensen said in his planning for any outdoor work he always allows for problems and so he was able to absorb them with out any issues.  While for the past two years the track has seen little action in between the DNC other than some practicing, this year a new club has been formed which will hopefully see racing take place all year round at the venue.

Having completed just one practice of the track last year’s big winners, Buggy Champion Ryan Maifield and Truggy Champion Ty Tessmann, both gave the layout a big thumbs up.  Maifield described the ‘fun’ track as having a really good flow adding that the long table tops were a particularly nice feature.  Tessmann said the layout was ‘real good’ to drive but added maintaining a rhythm over the many jumps every time was quite challenging but he was looking forward to mastering it.

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‘From Race Control’ – Day 1, Practice

Its that time of the year again as Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen’s signature event ‘The Dirt Nitro Challenge’ breaks the winter silence and kicks off the start of a new season of 1:8 Nitro offroad racing.  Unlike last year’s running of the Phoenix, Arizona, based event when heavy hail forced the opening day to be cut short, it is a warm & dry if slightly overcast day at the Fear Farm.  On the schedule for Day 1 of the five day event is two rounds of 7-minute practice per class with each driver’s fastest 3-consecutive laps of the day determining their seeding for the qualifying heats.