Team Losi Racing got the Dirt Nitro Challenge off to an uncharacteristically rough start in Pro Truck qualifying, as Ryan Maifield was never quite able to back up his third-place score in round one - he came back from a second round DNF to salvage eighth place points in the final qualifier, giving him a score good enough for sixth overall. Defending national champion Dakotah Phend had even worse luck, qualifying 27th overall. When the nitro buggies hit the track, however, they came out with guns a-blazing and took the top two spots, with Maifield turning the only twelve-lap run.
LiveRC YouTube account -- RVA (Race Video Archive) recordings of all races available to Bonus Lap members
When Ryan Maifield hit the track in heat four, the fastest time at that point was Barry Pettit’s 11/7:08.373 - which was good for sixth after all races were completed. Despite joining those left feeling horribly unwell by the dust and weather, and without knowing how rest of the round would go down, Maifield ripped off a ballistic 12/7:38.707, including the third-fastest single lap (37.315) of the round. He was the fastest car throughout his entire race, and his slowest lap (38.961) came on his final circuit of the Fear Farm track - as he completed the only 12-lap run.
Dakotah Phend followed in the very next heat, trading laps back and forth with defending champion Ty Tessmann before taking the lead for good just past the halfway mark. Phend’s fastest lap was a half a second slower than Maifield’s, but he came back strong after a mistake in the middle of the race to pull away from Tessmann by over a second.
“It was all right, but the track was loose,” said Tessmann of his third-place run. “I was going good and just made a mistake,” said the defending champion, who rolled over on the hump heading into the right side berm. The setup on his D815 Worlds Edition didn’t change from Wednesday, though he may consider thicker oil and perhaps a change from M3-compound Blockades should the weather warm up or the track conditions change. His father, Gord, pointed out that the corner where Ty crashed is starting to blow out, and that the track conditions are changing a lot even though it looks relatively the same.
“It was decent, but my car wouldn’t turn left,” said Ryan Lutz after recording the fourth fastest time. “I had the blinker on for a mile and it still wouldn’t turn. The car turned much better to the right, but luckily the track is 80% right-hand corners,” he added, but he wouldn’t speculate on what caused the handling hang-up until he had a chance to disassemble the NB48. “Maybe I just wasn’t turning the wheel hard enough,” he said. Though he ran Super Soft Chain Links, he may switch to Soft compound if the weather gets hotter in the middle of the day. “I think they’ll be a good tire for the main too, so I might as well get used to them,” he said.
Darren Bloomfield’s time in round one, good for fifth place, was even more impressive considering how the run began - with a flameout in warm-up. “It cut at the start of warm-up, so we turned up the idle, upped the idle again, did a speedway look [Ed. note: the back of the track is opened to allow drivers to bypass the infield in order to start the clock on time), and started the clock.” Bloomfield and NEMO Racing manager Dave Duggan chose to run thinner oil and softer camber link setup to get the car to roll more after Wednesday’s practice. “Basically, we’ve been using our E-Buggy runs to work out what we would need when the nitro buggy came around,” said Bloomfield. Duggan added, “With only one practice it was kind of a shot in the dark, but now we’ll just tune for the conditions.” About the performance of the A215 in its first time on the clock at the DNC, Duggan said, “A couple more tweaks and we’ll be good to go.”
Here are the top twenty drivers from the first round:
Here are the replays of the last five heats of Pro Buggy:
![Main Photo: DNC: Maifield and Phend turn TLR 1-2 in opening Pro Buggy round [REPLAYS]](https://assets.liveracemedia.com/media/images/DSC_0323x_LP0QKpP.max-850x450.jpg)
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