After six grueling rounds of 2WD racing, out of which each driver’s five best scores will count toward the overall, the Invitational class switched to the 4WD portion for the remaining two rounds on Saturday evening. Predictably, the heavy favorites after 2WD struggled a bit and new names found their way toward the top. The two 4WD rounds on Saturday evening only served to tighten the overall points heading into Sunday’s final rounds of racing.
Round Seven
Team Durango’s Ryan Lutz kept saying that he was looking forward to the end of the 2WD portion and the start of 4WD, and he wasn’t kidding – Lutz nabbed his first round win of the weekend with a strong drive over the surging Lee Martin and the rest of the field. Martin did all he could to make up for the bad draw for starting position, scoring second place points for the round, and finishing well clear of Team Associated’s Tanner Denney – who also had a strong finish despite the poor starting position.
1. Ryan Lutz (3)– 16/5:07.026
2. Lee Martin (8) – 16/5:08.883
3. Tanner Denney (6) – 16/5:14.784
4. Tyler Vik (5) – 16/5:15.296
5. Christoffer Svensson (4) – 16/5:15.901
6. Rick Hohwart (9) – 16/5:18.741
7. Josh Pain (1) – 16/5:20.619
8. Brian Kinwald (8) – 10/3:23.713
9. Rob Gillespie (2) – 5/1:40.338
10. Jared Tebo (10) – 4/1:20.120
The points leader after 2WD, Ryan Maifield, suffered a drivetrain failure in warm-up for the second heat of 4WD and did not make the start; his Team Associated teammate Neil Cragg, who won one round during 2WD, held off his IFMAR World Champion teammate Steven Hartson for the win by about a quarter of a second with another two seconds back to a stunning battle in which TLR’s Dustin Evans edged Ryan Cavalieri by less than a second.
1. Neil Cragg (2) – 16/5:08.904
2. Steven Hartson (10) – 16/5:09.149
3. Dustin Evans (4) – 16/5:11.286
4. Ryan Cavalieri (3) – 16/5:11.931
5. Mike Truhe (7) – 16/5:16.646
6. Oliver Scholz (8) – 15/5:01.592
7. Joseph Quagraine (6) – 15/5:01.865
8. Joern Neumann (5) – 15/5:02.849
9. Brian Strange (1) – 15/5:05.829
10. Ryan Maifield (9) – DNS
Current 4WD ROAR National Champion Ty Tessmann won his heat to no one’s surprise, starting up front and clearing three-time IFMAR Touring Car World Champion Marc Rheinard and and Dakotah Phend for the most convincing win of the round.
1. Ty Tessmann (1) – 16/5:05.230
2. Marc Rheinard (6) – 16/5:09.221
3. Dakotah Phend (9) – 16/5:11.336
4. Carson Wernimont (8) – 16/5:15.120
5. Cody King (3) – 16/5:17.917
6. Kody Numedahl (5) – 16/5:18.383
7. Travis Amezcua (10) – 15/5:03.247
8. Cody Turner (7) – 15/5:27.715
9. Billy Fischer (2) – 14/4:41.628
10. Barry Baker (4) – 14/5:00.867
Click to view full-size image.
Round Eight
Ryan Maifield, Ryan Cavalieri, Dustin Evans, and Jared Tebo all lining up together made this the most stacked heat of the day. Last year’s Open 2WD champion Carson Wernimont kept his new Schumacher buggy out front and led for four laps, then retook the position from Dustin Evans when the former champ made a mistake five laps later. Evans and Cavalieri tangled just past the halfway point and collected Mafield, who got the worst of it, and Wernimont silenced any critics by keeping the rest of the field at bay for all minutes.
1. Ryan Maifield (6) – 16/5:04.107
2. Ryan Cavalieri (8) – 16/5:04.358
3. Carson Wernimont (1) – 16/5:06.977
4. Dustin Evans (3) – 16/5:07.579
5. Billy Fischer (4) – 16/5:16.517
6. Brian Kinwald (2) – 16/5:17.596
7. Jared Tebo (9) – 15/4:52.867
8. Josh Pain (7) – 15/5:01.397
9. Tanner Denney (6) – 6/1:45.935
10. Oliver Scholz (8) – 6/2:03.187
After a round in in 2WD, Travis earned the honor again with a clean wire-to-wire victory in the second heat. Neil Cragg and Steven Hartson, however, had to work their way past Rick Hohwart and Joseph Quagraine just to collect second and third place points!
1. Travis Amezcua (1) – 16/5:06.191
2. Neil Cragg (7) – 16/5:09.379
3. Steven Hartson (5) – 16/5:10.226
4. Ryan Lutz (6) – 16/5:11.324
5. Joseph Quagraine (3) – 16/5:12.343
6. Kody Numedahl (9) – 16/5:12.897
7. Cody King (4) – 16/5:17.076
8. Brian Strange (8) – 16/5:19.302
9. Rick Hohwart (2) – 16/5:22.541
10. Mike Truhe (10)– 15/5:04.492
TLR phenom and 2WD National Champion Dakotah Phend narrowly edged current 4WD National Champion, Ty Tessmann, finishing just three-tenths of a second ahead with 2012 champion Joern Neumann right behind.
1. Dakotah Phend (2) – 16/5:09.017
2. Ty Tessmann (9) – 16/5:09.348
3. Joern Neumann (3) – 16/5:10.808
4. Marc Rheinard (4) – 16/5:11.301
5. Lee Martin (10) – 16/5:11.611
6. Tyler Vik (6) – 16/5:16.353
7. Rob Gillespie (2) – 15/5:03.803
8. Cody Turner (1) – 15/5:19.386
9. Christoffer Svensson (8) – 13/4:15.042
10. Barry Baker (5) – 6/2:03.078
Travis Amezcua, Dakotah Phend, Neil Cragg, Ryan Lutz, and Ty Tessmann talk about winning a heat in the first two rounds of 4WD competition to close out Day Two of Invitational class competition at the Reedy Race of Champions.
Click to view full-size image.
There are just four more rounds left! Who will win the 20th Reedy International Race of Champions? We’ll found out in less than 24 hours!
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