2011 ROAR Off-Road Nationals – Qualifying Rd1
The first day of qualifying started off with an epic drivers meeting with ROAR Official Bob Ingersoll on the mic. The track looked to be back in great shape once a few holes got repaired after yesterday’s practice.
Top seed, Jared Tebo, crashed early in the race and fell to the back of the pack in 2wd Short Course Modified. After the race he said the track had much more traction than usual and made his truck really hard to drive. TLR’s Cody Turner had an impressive performance with his XXX-SCT, seeded in 10th finished with a 3rd for the round. Teammate, Dustin Evans said his truck was super edgy dealing with the copious amounts of traction but was happy with his 2nd place finish. Ryan Maifield put in an excellent performance from the 2nd seed with his Team Associated Factory Team SC10. He jumped out into the lead early on and a near flawless run gave him the TQ for Q1.
4wd Modified Buggy suffered the usual amounts of casualties. 12th seed, Team Associated’s Kody Numedahl, won the B-qualifier and set a fast 18 lap pace for the A drivers which earned him a 3rd for the round. Tebo, Maifield and Cavalieri started off the A-qualifier but Maifield had an electronics issue that left his car dead early in the race. Local driver, Curtis Door, was flying around the track with a solid white painted B44.1. At the end of the race he edged out the Kyosho FS2 of Jared Tebo to finish 2nd for the race and the round. Fresh off his world championship win, Ryan Cavalieri was the most consistent driver with his Orion powered Team Associated B44.1, keeping the hot-streak alive and finishing with the TQ for Q1.
After struggling a bit in the early morning, Jared Tebo found his rhythm in Modified Truck with his Kyosho RT5 and secured the TQ for Q1. TLR teammates, Dustin Evans and Mike Truhe finished 2nd and 3rd respectively with their fresh out of the box TLR22Ts.
The first round of qualifying for 4wd Short Course was a clean sweep by Losi. Top seed, Ryan Lutz , started of strong but a popped ball-link on his Durango that put him in the back of the pack. Phillip Atondo and Mike Truhe chased the leader, Dakotah Phend around the track to finish 3-2-1 respectively. Team Durango’s Billy Fischer drove a great race in the B-qualifier, which put him up to 4th overall for the round.
All of the spectators encircled the track for the final race of round 1, 2wd Modified Buggy. It looked as though Losi was going to sweep the class for Q1, but Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield stayed consistent with his B4.1, finishing in 2nd place. Dakotah Phend is keeping his string of great runs going with a 3rd overall finish but it was TLR teammate Dustin Evans that is on fire with his 22 buggy. Dustin was in 3rd on the first lap and lead from the second lap on, wrapping up the first round of qualifying with a TQ.
