‘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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Truggy A-Main Result

1.(1) Ty Tessmann – HB/OS Speed – 62/45:26.955
2.(9) Barry Pettit – Mugen/Novarossi – 62/45:38.353
3.(3) Dakotah Phend – TLR/Orion – 61/45:06.861
4.(2) Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion – 61/45:07.619
5.(4) Drew Moller – Mugen/Novarossi – 61/45:14.192
6.(5) Cody King – Kyosho/Reds Racing – 61/45:18.688
7.(8) Ryan Maifield – Associated/Novarossi – 60/45:00.395
8.(12)Adam Drake – TLR/Novarossi – 60/45:16.829
9.(13)Jeremy Kortz – Agama/Werks – 60/45:42.741
10.(10)Josh Wheeler – Xray/OS Speed – 60/45:43.932
11.(7)Mike Truhe – Serpent/TOP – 57/45:33.951
12.(14)David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 48/35:50.335
13.(15)Renaud Savoya – Xray/Orion – 48/45:29.083
14.(6)Carson Wernimont – Mugen/OS Speed – 21/16:51.566
15.(11)Ryan Lutz – Durango/Alpha – 14/10:08.553

Ronnefalk first European winner at DNC

Team Kyosho ace David Ronnefalk became the first European winner at the world famous Dirt Nitro Challenge as he took his Orion powered MP9 to a convincing win in the eBuggy A-Main.  Attracting its most competitive field yet since its introduction, the Swedish ace moved to the front on lap 3 when he blasted passed the Mugen of Top Qualifier Drew Moller on the back straight.  Quickly pulling clear at the front of the 15-car field, the 17-year old would take the win by over 10 seconds from fellow teenager Moller who saw off a race long challenge from the TLR of reigning US National Champion Dakotah Phend.

Delighted with his significant win, Ronnefalk said the plan for the 8-minute encounter was to just be patient for the first few laps as he knew his buggy was really good.  Getting passed the No.2 starting Durango of Ryan Lutz when last years runner up got out of shape first time by the drivers stand he was particularly happy with his move on Moller which he described as a ‘great pass’.  Once in front he said with Phend battling with Moller he pushed hard to try build up a gap.   With a big enough gap by the end of the race he said he was finishing off the 9-pack with a single, single, single approach.  Running in the final with new tyres, the buggy fitted with AKA Catapults and a new speedo/motor combination from Team Orion, he said everything worked perfect adding he hoped the win was a good omen for tomorrow’s 1:8 Nitro Buggy final for which he lines up 4th on  the grid.

eBuggy A-Main Result
1.(3) David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 12/8:18.666
2.(1) Drew Moller – Mugen/LRP – 12/8:29.034
3.(4) Dakotah Phend – TLR/Orion – 12/8:30.366
4.(9) Cody King – Kyosho/Orion – 12/8:33.924
5.(6) Carson Wernimont – Mugen/Reedy – 12/8:35.364
6.(7) Ty Tessmann – HB/Orion – 12/8:38.883
7.(8) Josh Wheeler – Xray/Tekin – 12/8:41.489
8.(14)Martin Bayer – Xray/LRP – 12/8:41.631
9.(13)Austin Blair – Kyosho/Tekin – 12/8:42.926
10.(2)Ryan Lutz – Durango/Tekin – 12/8:43.311
11.(5)Jared Tebo – Kyosho/Orion – 11/8:00.767
12.(10)Billy Fischer – TLR/Novak – 11/8:02.625
13.(15)Barry Pettit – Mugen/Tekin – 11/8:04.777
14.(11)Mike Truhe – Serpent/Novak – 11/8:05.804
15.(12)Adam Drake – TLR/Tekin – 2/1:02.572

View our event image gallery here.