SILVER STATE: Cavalieri, Tessmann, and King top round one results

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

With only three rounds of qualifying at this year’s Silver State, and each driver’s two best finishes counting toward the overall lineup for Sunday’s main events, every heat counts. Yesterday’s seeding practice shook up the status quo with some of the fastest drivers in the world sitting lower than normally expected (the current world champ is in the B heat!) and that only made the first round more exciting - no one knew what to expect.

“I knew the track was going to get loose midway through,” said Cody King, who was fastest in the E-Buggy class. He added, “I was paying attention to when that happened so I could back off a bit.” After practice, King went to stiffer front springs and traded his M3 Suppressors for M3 Holeshots. “It was pretty easy to drive, so that was good,” said King, “I think everyone is having a problem with their cars pushing. I had too much steering and had to mellow it down.”

“I made a whole bunch of changes, but it felt really good,” said Jared Tebo. Those adjustments included pistons, springs, front sway bar, and anti-squat. “I needed the car to get better. It was a bit slow around the track and too easy to drive,” said Jared, who may opt for a softer front spring to get more steering in round two. “I just had one mistake at the beginning, when I hit the curbing after the roller on the left side and crashed,” said Jared.

“I had an off-track deal that was a little sketchy that cost me some time, but it could’ve been a lot worse,” said Drake, who set the third-fastest time in E-Buggy. After clipping the pipe in the switchback at the end of the straight, his MBX7 ECO flipped between the two lanes. “It was easy to drive,” said Drake, who will let the change in weather for the second round determine whether he runs M3 or X3 compound tires.

These are the top twenty Open Electric Buggy drivers in the first round:

“My truck was the same as yesterday, so I just drove around the track, pretty much, and tried not to crash,” said Ty Tessmann after running the best time in the Truck class. Though he ran M3 compound Holeshots in the first round, he may try the new Suppressors in M3 for round two.

Ryan Lutz was second-fastest, but is still looking for more from his Tekno RC NT48. “It was decent, but it needs more steering,” said Lutz, who tried a lower and longer front camber link, and a lighter front sway bar, after practice. For the second round, he might try going back to a shorter camber link and an even lighter front swaybar, perhaps with less front kick-up.

Taking a similar approach like he did in E-Buggy, Cody King set the third-fastest time by being smart about the changing track conditions. “I went to lighter oil in the front diff and thought it was better,” said King, “and I just stuck with it and tried to keep it on all four tires. You can’t push on this track because there are so many 180s, and if you drive in too hard you can end up in the fluff. I just had to keep it going for seven and a half minutes.”

Ryan Maifield set the fourth best time in the first round of Truck despite concerns about not being able to find the perfect gear ratio for the size of the track to maximize the power delivery of his Team Orion engine. “It was okay, I just need to go to a softer tire and make a setup change,” said Ryan.

“My truck was good,” said fifth-place driver Ryan Cavalieri, “we were just all so close, and I missed a couple of lines at the end.” Running the same setup as he did at DNC, and not planning any changes for the second round despite colder weather, Cavalieri said his result just came down to driving. “The track is really fast, and if you don’t hit all your marks you miss a couple of tenths here and there,” he said.

These were the top twenty fastest drivers in the first round of Open Nitro Truck:

Ryan Cavalieri didn’t set the track on fire in the first few laps, but he fought to the top of the charts by the end of the race to set the fastest time in Pro Buggy. Having gone up a half-weight in shock oil after yesterday’s practice, his prototype Team Associated RC8B2 handled the evolving track conditions well. “It was a clean run, so that was good. I didn’t start off that fast but (the track) came in during the race, and I put some solid laps together at the end,” said Cavalieri.

“I made all the same changes I made on by E-Buggy and it was really good, I just messed up driving,” said former champ Jared Tebo, finishing just a half-second behind Cavalieri. While navigating the sweeper heading toward the tabletop, Tebo got off the line while passing around a car and hit the pipe. The flip cost him about a second, which was enough to lose the lead. When asked if he would make further changes to his Kyosho MP9 TKI3, Tebo said, “I’m not sure yet. But it’s definitely better than it was yesterday.”

Blaming the hot weather for his engine being low on power, Ryan Maifield was nearly two seconds behind Tebo but still third best for the round. “I made a little mistake on the second-to-last lap when I hit the bump heading onto the back straight and took a shock tower digger,” said the DNC champion, who made no changes to his TLR 8IGHT 3.0 after practice and doesn’t plan any for the second round.

“I just played it safe,” said Carson Wernimont, who qualified fourth after winning the ‘B’ heat. “I made a couple of changes and got the car to turn a little bit more, which made it quite a lot faster on the track. I didn’t have to use the E-brake to get around the corners,” he said. Carson said the only change he plans on making for the second round is a smaller carburetor restrictor. “It’s got way too much power,” he said.

Here are the top twenty drivers from Expert Nitro Buggy in round one: