Tessmann talks disappointing DNC

AMain.com and Hot Bodies’ driver Ty Tessmann talks openly about it struggles at this year’s The Dirt Nitro Challenge:

 

After 3 successful years at DNC, 2015 was disappointing in more ways than one.  After arriving at the track on Tuesday morning to set up the HB pits, this would be HB’s biggest showing at any race, and I was very excited . The layout of the track looked extremely fast and fun, and we were looking forward to an exciting week.  We arrived Wednesday morning at 7:30am ready for the scheduled 8am drivers meeting, so we set up my pit and waited… and waited… and waited.

 

We got started at about 1:30pm and  because of the late start they changed the schedule to allow for only 1 practice run with each car. The track definitely didn’t disappoint, the layout was fast, fun, flowing and challenging.  Even though we only had 1 practice with each car, I was really looking forward to qualifying with truck and e buggy on Thursday.

 

We arrived Thursday morning bright and early only to find that there were more delays.  The track was really good for the 1st round and my truck felt really good, I qualified 2nd behind David who was running the same D8T Tessmann edition, we both felt our trucks were really good at this point.  The second qualifier didn’t go so well, I think I may have picked the wrong tire, the track was extremely loose for everyone, this would be my throwout heat.  On the 3rd run my truck was pretty good, I edged out Jared by a few thousandths of a second for TQ, this would give Jared and myself the same points but he took overall TQ because of his faster time.

 

My e-buggy was much better, in the first round I got a 3rd overall, the 2nd round I tq’d and the 3rd round I got 2nd, this would give me the overall tq for buggy.  These heats were very close but my car felt really good and I was confident going into the mains with both truck and buggy.

 

Friday was nitro buggy qualifying, this started late because of them finishing up e-buggy and nitro truck qualifying from the night before.  When I got on the track with nitro buggy the track was dry and starting to break up already.  I made a few changes from the practice round on wednesday for the conditions and I felt like my car was quite good.   The 1st round was kind of rough, I crashed all on my own and this knocked me down to a 5th for the round . In the 2nd round I tq’d over Elliot Boots by just hundredths of a second, and in the 3rd round I qualified 2nd behind David, my points gave me the overall tq.  My car felt really good, I felt like I could push it and I was excited for the main.

 

By the time the truck main came around the track was very dry from the lack of watering all day, there was a lot of discussion about which tire would be best, I won’t ever know for sure but I may have chosen the wrong tire.  The beginning of the race, I tried to make my way around Jared but he kept everything close and I was unable to get by, I was very careful not to get into him, he eventually made a mistake and I was able to get by.  All the while this allowed David to catch up and then it became a battle between David and myself, the battle went on for awhile, and when I managed to get a bit of a lead, if you watch the neobuggy video at 32:26 this was when I felt my car first lose steering and it continued to do this until the end of the race and I just wasn’t able to hold on to the car.  I thought it had to do with my steering but I found out later that the on of the wings on the front arm had broke and was getting hung up on the steering knuckle and then it finally broke away totally on the last lap, but with the lead David and I had I was still able to limp across and take 2nd.  This was disappointing in many ways especially since I have never broken an arm in this way before, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

 

In the e-buggy main things went really well, I expected to have a battle on my hands with some fast drivers starting at the front, Austin Blair crashed almost right away, and Maifield was charging hard, he had some really fast laps but kept making mistakes, so I just cruised around the track and stayed on my wheels and it was enough to take the win.

 

Sunday was nitro buggy main day, the way the schedule was made up we should have run the buggy main at 8pm but once again there were more delays and we started at about 10:45pm.  What makes the nitro challenge one of the hardest races to win, is how much the track changes from dry to wet to blown out you never know what you are going to get.  As the tone went I expected Ryan Maifield who qualified 2nd to attack early, so on the first jump I tried to keep the door closed and ended shorting the jump slightly, Ryan landed on the inside of me and made a nice pass, then he crashed on the 2nd double in front of the drivers stand allowing me to pull back in front, with Ryan right behind me.  We raced clean with a few bobbles, while we were battling this allowed Dakotah to catch up and it was then a 3 way battle with the rest of the field close behind.  Ryan would then get a little bit ahead, I did my best to keep him as close as I could, being on different fuel stops the lead was swapped a few times.  Dakotah ended up getting in front for awhile, and again I just tried to stay with him, we had a good clean race, and  Dakotah and I started to stretch out a lead from the rest of the field.  I managed to get by Dakotah and get a comfortable lead over the rest of the field and I really got into my rhythm and was able to drive without making any mistakes, at about the 31 minute mark I downsided the double before the line and my car lost signal.  I managed to limp it into pit lane, I thought it was a receiver or radio problem because the signal would come and go, but when my dad pulled the body off, he noticed that the micro deans had come apart, but it wasn’t totally apart which explains the intermittent signal.  He plugged it back in and I got back on the track but it was too late.  This is the same kind of plug I have used for years without issue.  This will go down in my memory as one of the worst nitro challenges for me mostly because I was in contention to win both classes and I didn’t.

I’m not writing this to complain or make excuses but I have had a lot of people asking me online what happened, and I wanted to let people know.  Congratulations to David and Ryan on great races, in my opinion it doesn’t matter how fast you were or how long you lead the race, the champion is the one who crosses the line first.