Tessmann heads difficult Silverstate qualifying

Friday morning was looking promising for the racers. It was a bit cool, but the clouds looked sparse and the wind would cause much more than a rustle in the bushes. The R/C gods wouldn’t let that last long though. After a few hours the winds picked back up and racing got just a bit more interesting.

Round 1 of expert truggy beat the winds and times reflected so. Ty Tessmann had a great run with very consistent laps. He made one mistake but that wasn’t enough to let go of the TQ for the first round of qualifying. The run of the morning goes to Taylor Peterson all the way in the “C” qualifier. He took advantage of the mellow winds and had a great run that jumped him all the way to 5th overall. Chad Bradley had a great round posting the second fastest run and Jesse Robbers rounded out the top three with his Hot Bodies D8T.

The winds picked back up before the expert buggy field got going on qualifying. It didn’t have the kite-like effect on them as it did yesterday but it slowed the pace down quite a bit. Not a single driver had a clean run but it was Jared Tebo who made the least mistakes and avoided the crater sized potholes on the track the best. Jared TQ’ed with his MP9. Ty Tessmann seems to be in top form. His Hot Bodies cars looked great in qualifying, and he carried the same form in the first round of qualifying finishing second overall. Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield finished 3rd for the round.

Many of the top drivers from around the world have made their way out to Boulder City for the Silver State Nitro Challenge. Renaud Savoya is leading the way for the international drivers. Teemu Leino has been another international driver that has caught my eye more than once. His truggy is looking fast and I wouldn’t be surprised if he jumps his way up the ranks with a fast run.

Ty Tessmann looked to have the overall TQ wrapped up in the second round of expert truggy. On the last lap he made one small mistake and not one but three trucks passed him. That is how close the competition is in truggy.  Maifield and Drake were trailing Ty before the mishap but it was Cody King that jumped from 4th to 1st on the final lap taking TQ for round 2. Adam Drake had a couple fast, flawless laps to finish 2nd and Ryan Maifield was 3rd.

Expert buggy round 2 qualifier was the last race of the day. The track grew some new obstacles. Some people would call them ruts, some holes, either way they were definitely obstacles. Jared Tebo found himself in 1st place after the first lap and was determined to hold it. A couple back-to-back rough laps dropped him back to third. Tessmann took over the lead and Maifield picked up one position to second. Ty then had one rough lap and Maifield had the lead. Maifield then had a couple rough laps (see a pattern yet?) and dropped back. After four lead changes Tessmann held his composure to take the win and round TQ. Tebo finished second and Maifield 3rd. In the contest between the track and car, the track was winning hands-down. I asked Maifield about some of his setup changes he made during the day and he concluded that no matter what he changed on his setup, the track changed more to counteract any progress.  Ryan felt like he was driving extremely slow during the heat but was pleased with his 3rd place finish.

On the radar tomorrow is some thunderstorms, possibly some rain and hopefully a well-patched track. The 3rd and final round of qualifying is up first then the lower mains will run after. The track is intimidating many drivers, but most are still having fun and that’s what this weekend is all about.

New in the pits

Ryan Maifield is testing the new LRP  ZR .21x Spec 2 power plant in his truggy this weekend. Team Associated team manager, Brent Thielke said, “We are running the new engine to see if it will be an option for us to distribute for LRP.” Also running the same motor is Xray star Teemu Leino, who previously raced the Team Orion motors but has been using the LRP powerplant this race and at last weekend’s ROAR Nats warmup race.

Video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKBHfjiEsb8[/youtube]

Image Gallery