Cavalieri takes first qualifier at JConcepts Finals

Ryan Cavalieri has TQ’d the opening round of 2WD Mod Buggy Qualifying at the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals in Omaha.  Racing for the first time on the HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex indoor track, the Associated driver was the only one to run 16-laps to top the times from practice top seed & last year’s winner Jared Tebo.  9/10th back on Tebo, World Champion Spencer Rivkin would complete the Top 3 ahead of Ryan Maifield, the TLR driver clearly unhappy with his opening performance.

Second fastest in practice yesterday, Cavalieri said ‘I just drove a little better than last night. The car had the same speed but I was a little more awake today’.  Starting behind Tebo but managing to get passed his rival early on, he said once in front his focus was to ‘maintain it (the TQ pace) and do nothing stupid’ adding ‘traffic in front was (his) biggest worry’.  While he felt the track was a little drier today he will leave his Orion powered B5M unchanged for Q2.

‘Pretty good’ was how Tebo summed up his Q1 performance.  Suffering a couple of mistakes, one costly one coming through traffic near the end which required him to be marshalled, the factory Kyosho driver said ‘I’m having a hard time being really consistent in spots (of the track)’.  He added ‘the car felt good but its missing a little something’ and he will ‘try a couple of things for the next one’.

After catching the piping on his opening two laps, Rivkin said he needs to drive a little more conservative at the start of Q2.  The 17-year-old said after his untidy start, he was able to catch the leaders and setting the fastest lap of the race he said ‘if you take away mistakes I would have been really close with them’.  Happy with his Reedy powered B5M he will leave it unchanged for Q2.

Fifth fastest, having struggled in seeding practice leaving him to run in the second fastest heat, Brent Thielke described his result as ‘not too bad’.  Making a number of changes to his B5M, the Team Associated Team Manager said ‘in the warm-up it didn’t feel that good’ and so he took it easy over the 5-minutes but ‘for the heat (he’d) take it’.  Feeling his tyres were ‘too squirmy’ for Q2 he will run a different set of JConcepts Dirt Webs feeling his current set was possibly over sauced.

Completing the Top 6, Taylor Larsen said he ‘wasn’t expecting it’.  The 17-year-old TLR driver said he ‘didn’t think the consistency was going to be there’ but his 22 3.0 felt really good adding he was ‘not sure if the track had come to the car’.  Planning to leave the car as is for Q2 he said the only thing he would be doing different would be to ‘drive a little harder’.

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Tebo tops seeding at JConcepts Final

Jared Tebo has topped seeding at the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals in Omaha, Nebraska. In the short 3-minute single seeding round, the Kyosho driver set the fastest three consecutive laps around the Hobby Plex track to top the 2WD Mod Buggy times from Ryan Cavalieri who was the only other driver to do a 59-second time. Running a time of 60.039, half a second off Tebo’s pace, Ryan Maifield completed the Top 3 with World Champion Spencer Rivkin fourth a further 3/10ths off.

Winner of the event last year, Tebo was happy to open official proceedings at the top of the time sheets. Running the same prototype chassis on his RB6 as he used to TQ the World Championships as well as JTP shock towers, the former World Champion said ‘once I got tyres sorted my car was really good’. Running AKA clay compound Chain Link tyres all round he said ‘I drove a little better too’ feeling he was now driving a cleaner line through the sweeper at the end of the straight. Also setting the fastest single lap of the seeding round, he said all he would be doing for Q1 tomorrow would be to ‘clean tyres and sauce them up’.

‘It was good’ was Cavalieri’s response when asked how the seeding run had gone. The Team Associated driver, who pretty much matched Tebo’s fastest lap with a 19.769 compared to 19.744, added ‘its very close, we have the same speed’. Running the same tyre as Tebo, he said his B5M had ‘tons of traction’ and for the seeding run the ‘track felt good’. With the car ‘really good’ the reigning US National Champion plans to leave everything as is for the first qualifier tomorrow.

Making his dirt race debut with the new TLR22 3.0, Maifield said his first few laps were perfect but as his lap times came down traffic prevented him from bettering his 3-consecutive lap pace. Running JConcepts Dirt Webs on his car, the reigning series champion said it felt easy to drive and he could still do fast laps predicting that over a 5-minute run and with less traffic to deal with he is ‘in it for the win’. Adding ‘all (drivers are) very close’, he said is was going to be down to which driver made the least mistakes and could get in the greatest number of 19-second laps.

Having issues with traffic, an attempt to jump over one backmarker not working out, Rivkin said his ‘car was good’ and he had ‘good grip’. The 17-year-old added he ‘couldn’t have asked for more’ in terms of the car and fourth was ‘OK’ as it was ‘just seeding’.

Behind the factory Associated driver, local racer Derek Wood posted the fifth fastest time. The Kyosho driver said the run ‘started off a little rough’ but once he got clear of traffic and didn’t over drive he managed to get 3-good laps in. Having started out the day with no front wing on his RB6 he said fitting one improved steering in particular allowing him to carry more speed through the sweeper.

Completing the Top 6 for the 2WD seeding was Austin Horne. Describing the track as a ‘really fun layout’, the 15-year-old said he has done little to his Associated B5M over the day with tyre prep being the biggest thing they worked on. Competing in the 60 entry 2WD Mod buggy class against his brother and his father, he said with the car and his JConcepts Dirt Webs tyres working well his focus for Q1 is to ‘just drive it’.

In 4WD Mod Buggy, it would be Cavalieri who would top the seeding, 3/10th up on Maifield and Tebo. Again Rivkin would end up fourth ahead of fellow Team Associated teenager Damion Borkowicz fifth with Nick Gibson completing the Top 6.

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Video – 2wd Controlled Practice Rd1

Tyre prep order of day in practice at JConcepts Finals

Tyres are the order of proceedings on the opening day of the JConcepts Indoor National Series Finals at HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex in Omaha, Nebraska.  The fifth & final stop on the JConcepts INS calendar, the series’ third year to visit the impressive Hobby Plex facility has attracted a high quality driver line up among the 260 plus entries with all using practice to get their tyres down to the right thread depth in preparation for qualifying.

As the schedule switched over to a round of seeding practice new World Champion Spencer Rivkin, who is racing 2WD & 4WD Buggy and Mod Truck, said things were going ‘so far so good’.  Content with the performance of all his Associated cars, the 17-year-old said he was ‘just getting tyres dialled in for qualifying’.  Running JConcepts gold compound Dirt Webs with Dirt-Tech inserts on 2.2 rims, he said the 4WD needed the most work ahead of qualifying but added that was down to the tyres not yet having reached their optimum point with the Reedy powered B44.3 improving with each run on the same set of tyres.  Describing the track layout as ‘awesome’, the Arizona driver added it was ‘challenging’ and would ‘show the men from the boys’.

Although he did the National Championship double here in 2009, when the track was outdoor, this is Ryan Cavalieri’s first time to race on Hobby Plex’s indoor track which was built in 2011.  The Associated driver said the height of the driver stand was ‘challenging’ but in terms of his cars ‘everything was going good so far’ with ‘everything dialled’.  Racing 2WD Short Course as his third class this weekend, the multiple World Champion said getting his AKA tyres prepared was the biggest focus of the day adding ‘I haven’t touched a whole lot’ on the cars as they have been ‘all in the ball park’ from the first practice.  The only adjustments being a rear spring change on his B5M Champions Edition and going to a heavier oil in the rear of his B44.3.

Winner of the two big classes here last year, Jared Tebo said ‘all my cars are pretty good and I have just been working on tyres’.  The Kyosho driver said matching the tyres so that the front and rear have the same grip level, joking ‘I hope once I get them right that they don’t wear too much’. Asked about the level of wear the AKA driver replied ‘Its hard to tell as I have been grinding them down (for each run)’.  Also racing in Short Course he said his tyre for this still needs a bit of work but for 2WD & 4WD Buggy he can now work on getting a second set ready. Asked about his pace he said with the level of traffic on the track its hard to tell where everyone is at but he declared himself ‘pretty happy’.

Making his dirt race debut with Team Losi Racing’s new 22 3.0, Ryan Maifield said practice was going ‘really good’.  The 2014 JConcepts INS Champion said his focus has been getting used to his new 2WD and trying different set-ups to see how it reacts, adding it ‘feels really good already’.  Only running buggy this weekend, in 4WD he said he was running ‘standard stuff’ on his TLR22-4 describing it as ‘easy to drive’.  Apart from learning about his 2WD he said ‘getting tyres  prepped’ was the main order of the day.

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Track Focus – HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex

Track Name – HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex
Country – USA
Location – Omaha, Nebraska
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous key events hosted – 2013 & 2014 JConcepts Indoor Nats Finals, 2009 ROAR 1/10 Offroad Nationals, 2014 ROAR Electric Onroad Carpet National.

For the third year running the HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex facility in Omaha, Nebraska, plays host to the Finals of the popular JConcepts Indoor National Series.  The fifth stop of the tyre, body and option parts manufacturer’s annual series, the race has attracted a healthy 260 plus entries.  With 2WD Mod Buggy the biggest category it also looks set to provide the main action with the likes of new World Champion Spencer Rivkin, last year’s event winner Jared Tebo, 2014 INS Champion Ryan Maifield and multiple World Champion Ryan Cavalieri among the line-up.

Situated about 45-minutes from Lincoln where the HobbyTown franchise started out, the impressive Hobby Plex facility is 11-years in business with the 32,000 sq feet facility housing a well stocked hobby store, an indoor carpet track and the indoor offroad track which hosts this weekends action.  Since it first hosted the JConcepts Finals in 2013, Store Manager Alex Sturgeon says there has been a lot of changes to the offroad track in terms of the dirt and how they maintain the track.  The purchase of a John Deere tractor and a tiller last year have made all the difference with Alex, himself an accomplished racer, saying it has resulted in the dirt blending better making it easier to build new tracks.

Another big change relates to track watering.  Previously they didn’t water the track during race meetings but on attending his first Reedy Race at OCRC in California where they have a plumbed in misting system that changed. Unfortunately Nebraska experiences very cold winters, although this year’s temperatures are pleasantly warmer than the previous snow covered ground conditions of previous visits, so fitting a mister system was not an option but instead they manually mist the track every 2-hours.  This has the effect of making the track change and break-up less dramatically than when they didn’t water with Alex saying it makes it easier to choose what tyre to run for the event.

Also changed from our visit in 2013 to the track is that the oval racing circuit that was located in the centre of the dirt area which elevates up towards the very high drivers stand, and which dictated the track layouts has been moved off to the right of the track.  While making for a slightly narrower area in which to build an offroad layout knocking about 3-seconds off the lap times, Alex said the smaller size is better suited to 1:10 and gives him a clear canvas to work with.  With the track to host next year’s ROAR 1:10 Offroad Nationals, plans are afoot to rebuild and improve the pitlane layout making access to the downhill track easier.

Winner of both 2WD and 4WD buggy at the event last year, Tebo said this year’s layout is ‘pretty cool’.  The Kyosho driver said while its ‘not too technical’ it is ‘fun to drive and will make for very close times’ adding ‘you have to drive it pretty hard to go fast’.  Making his dirt race debut with TLR’s 22 3.0 this weekend, Maifield described the layout as ‘fun’ and ‘really flowing’ with the the biggest problem for him being that the track piping is higher than the track in some spots causing him to lose sight of the car.

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