Rivkin & Maifield clash, Phend right in contention

The penultimate round of racing at the 22nd running of the Reedy Race of Champions produced fireworks at OCRC as Spencer Rivkin clashed with Ryan Maifield, the reigning champion coming off the worst.  The opening race of the fifth round of 4WD would see Maifield start 4th and Rivkin 8th with the pair going to the front when Dustin Evans had a rollover on the step down half way through the race. Running on his mentor’s rear wing for 5 laps, Rivkin would attempt an ambitious inside pass through the sweeper which he couldn’t execute.  Making contact with Maifield the incident was exacerbated when a delayed Maifield could connect with team-mate Dustin Evans over the following double sending Maifield tumbling.  With Rivkin coming out in front, Maifield would resume in fifth but with just three laps to recover could only salvage third behind JP Richards.  While Rivkin felt the second incident with Evans was Maifield’s undoing Maifield had a very different view saying ‘he (Rivkin) lost a friend in that deal’.  With Jared Tebo going on to claim his first 4WD win in Race 2 ahead of Kyle McBride, the significant result of the round would come in Race 3 with Dakotah Phend winning from 9th on the grid.  Describing it as a ‘very important’ result the win now puts the TLR driver in contention for the Reedy Race title with him equal on points with Rivkin when dropped scores are taken into account with Maifield one point behind them.

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