FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Relive last year’s nail-biting Nationals finals

Everybody knows that Friday is meant for reminiscing old times. Each week we take you back in time as we flashback to some of R/C racing's greatest moments, products, drivers, and more!

 

 

 

 

In less than a week, the fastest nitro off-road racers in North America will head to AMain.com’s Silver Dollar RC Raceway in Chico, CA for the ROAR Fuel Off-Road Nationals with two titles - as well as direct invitations to the 2016 IFMAR Worlds in Las Vegas - on the line. The race promises to be the most exciting nitro off-road event of the year, and you’ll be able to watch it all live here on LiveRC.

 

Last year, this same race was hosted by Thornhill RC Circuit in Hutto, TX - and it provided what was perhaps the most exciting racing we’ve ever seen.

 

 

Young guns Dakotah Phend and Ty Tessmann each TQ’d two rounds in each class, with Phend winning the both tiebreakers by mere seconds despite Tessmann having the faster single times. And as if that wasn't close enough, qualifying was just a hint at how exciting the long main events would be. Both Truck and Buggy class finals came down to the final lap, with the top two in the Truck division separated by less than a half-second at the finish line!

 

 

When Tessmann passed Phend just three laps into the main event, it looked like the HB driver was well on his way to defending his 2013 championship. Phend closed the gap once his tires broke in, however - and the race was on. They swapped positions a few times in the middle of the race, but with ten minutes to go Phend crashed heading toward the “Mt. Thornhill” step-up in the center of the track. The mistake gave Tessmann a huge lead. Phend put his head down and charged as hard as he could, catching the Canadian with two minutes remaining. Tessmann held tough under pressure, but Phend executed an incredible pass upon landing the double-triple section, motoring by his rival down the back straightaway and sealing the deal a few turns later for his first ROAR National Championship in any nitro class.

 

 

 

 

 

The double-triple might have been where Dakotah Phend nailed the pass for the Truck class victory, but it was also the section where his chance at a title sweep vanished. Just six minutes into the 60-minute affair, Phend crashed over the tricky rhythm section and tumbled out of the track’s outer limits - where it sat unnoticed by turn marshals for over fifteen seconds. Ryan Maifield, behind the wheel of the now-forgotten “RC8B2 prototype” in his final major event for Team Associated, inherited the lead after Phend’s mistake and everyone not named “Ty Tessmann” seemed comfortable engraving Ryan Maifield’s name on the trophy. Tessmann stretched his fuel strategy and threw down the fastest lap of the race in pursuit, and caught everyone by surprise when he passed Maifield with ten minutes to go. Maifield was never far behind, however, and with one minute left Tessmann bounced off the pipe in a slow right-hand keyhole corner, giving Maifield the room he needed to get by - but Maifield actually nudged Tessmann’s car away from the barrier as he passed, allowing Ty to rejoin the battle immediately behind. On the final lap, Tessmann drove to the inside of Maifield in the first 180 after the pit straightaway and Maifield tried to defend his position in the following turn leading to the step-up. The two cars collided and sat upside down next to one another on the face of the jump, and Tessmann took the top spot once the turn marshal had righted both vehicles. Three turns later, Maifield came up short on a double jump and let Tessmann cruise in for the win.

 

 

 

 

Dakotah showed incredible speed all weekend long, but it was his unbelievable pace in the Truck class final, when he tracked down Tessmann after a slow start, that mattered the most.

 

Ty Tessmann's incredible charge to the front in the Buggy final, capped off by a thrilling win in which his nerves of steel allowed to him to hold it together under pressure, was a sign of things to come heading into last year's Worlds in Italy.

 

Maifield's departure from Team Associated after the ROAR Nationals was one of RC's worst-kept secrets, but that didn't stop the Arizonan from coming within a lap of winning a title with the prototype RC8B2 - that was scrapped completely just a couple of months later.

 

Unfortunately overshadowed by the incredible racing ahead of him, Ryan Lutz - then with Team Durango - quietly earned third place honors in both divisions.

 

Will next week's race live up to the drama from last year? We can only hope!