FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Maifield and Rivkin won rain-shortened ROAR 1/8-Scale Electric Off-Road Nationals

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com 

There were 89 entries in the Buggy division, making it the largest of the weekend. Ryan Maifield — racing then for TLR — set the fastest time in the first three rounds to lock up the overall TQ.

In the fourth round, Spencer Rivkin — who had just won the Nitro Buggy title seven weeks prior — set the fastest time to solidify second on the ground after earning two 2's earlier.

Maifield was even better In 4WD Short Course, setting the fastest time in all four rounds of qualifying and turning the fastest time of all in the final heat. It wasn't close, either - he was about 12 seconds faster than the rest of the field on average.

The "rest of the field" was headed by Tekno RC’s Ryan Lutz, who set the second-quickest time in three of the four qualifying rounds to grab the second spot on the grid.

Maifield started off Truck qualifying as he had in both of the other classes by clicking off the best run in round one.

Maifield's Team Orion-powered Team Losi Racing teammate Dakotah Phend had his best run in Q2, in which he edged Maifield (and everyone else) for the fastest time.

Then Maifield rose back to the top of the charts in rounds three and four to lock up the overall TQ - his third of the weekend.

All in all, Maifield had ten TQ runs in 12 chances and looked to be the favorite to win the championship in all three classes. See the puddles behind the podium backdrop? This photo was taken at the end of the weekend...

By the time qualifying wrapped up on Saturday, weather reports had indicated rain was imminent for Sunday — which threatened the scheduled main events. ROAR decided to run single A-Mains and the lower finals on Saturday night.

Maifield sped away from the grid at the start of the A-Main in Buggy, while second qualifier Spencer Rivkin made an early mistake and dropped to ninth — which let Ryan Lutz and Ryan Cavalieri by. Lutz and Cavalieri swapped spots a couple of times, then Lutz caught and passed Maifield at the halfway mark. Meanwhile, Rivkin had worked his way back into contention and ran in third. Less than three laps after taking the lead, Lutz made a mistake and dropped to third behind Maifield and Rivkin.

Maifield won by 3.6 seconds over Rivkin, while Lutz worked his way back around teammate Joe Bornhorst on the final lap to claim the final podium spot just one second further behind Rivkin.

As was the case in qualifying, Maifield was untouchable in the 4WD Short Course final. At the start tone, the Arizona native took off and eventually won by more than 22 seconds. Lutz had a similarly uneventful six-minute main event, in which he ran second the entire time and didn't endure much pressure.

Phend recovered from a rough first lap to fight his way past TLR teammate David Jenson and Tekno's Joe Bornhorst just one circuit of the track later and set off in pursuit of the leaders - finishing 6.3 seconds behind Lutz by the end of the race.

Note: Maifield's first lap position is an error.

Ryan Maifield's chances of winning all three titles lasted until nearly the halfway mark of the E-Truck final. At the 3:30 mark, Maifield crashed and fell to third behind Rivkin and Phend — who had swapped spots on lap two. Maifield clawed his way back to second ahead of Phend three laps later, but then crashed again on the following lap and dropped to fourth behind Phend and Bornhorst.

Rivkin was the only driver to get by the finish line for a 21st lap before time expired, eventually finishing nearly 19 seconds ahead of Phend. Bornhorst was another 1.8 seconds further back.

Will Maifield be able to repeat his success this weekend? Will Rivkin win again? Or will someone else take the title? We'll find out soon enough — and hopefully in more agreeable weather!