ROAR NATS: Phend finishes ahead of the pack in Round One of Truck Qualifying

0 June 20, 2014, 8:49 a.m.

6/20/2014

By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC

Leading all but one lap in the 'A' heat of qualifying, Dakotah Phend set the fastest time of the opening round of qualifying for the Truck division at the 2014 ROAR Fuel Off-Road Nationals. Starting off on the first lap that was three-tenths of a second faster than Ty Tessmann, who was fastest after practice, Phend's only bobble on lap seven gave Tessmann the lead. Phend then set the only sub-45 second lap of the round immediately afterward to retake the lead and pull away for a 1.7-second victory.

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Phend said his truck was "really good" and that his run was pretty much mistake-free, saying he was simply "trying to get a clean run in" to start off the day. "I was aggressive but didn't drive over my head," said Phend, who clipped a few pipes and bicycled onto two wheels but said his truck never felt tippy. He was so happy with his truck that he'll be "keeping everything the same" for the next round.

Nearly five seconds faster than the third fastest driver, Tessmann ran right on pace with Phend all race long despite his engine running a bit lean, which meant that he had trouble stopping. The fastest driver in practice had trouble with traffic and said his "run was just all right" and that he "clipped a couple of pipes." His father, Gord, added that Tessmann lost time by going too wide in the off-camber right-hander and that missing the hole in the takeoff of the center double in order to not jump so high would be key as the weekend went on. Ty added that he's going to reduce the Ackermann in his D8T Tessmann Edition to get it to turn more aggressively.

Carson Wernimont edged former teammate Ryan Lutz by just four-tenths, driving his Mugen Seiki MBX7T to the third fastest time. He, too, said his truck was "really good" and only bobbled when he came up short on the triple twice throughout the run. Slowing as well to let Tessmann pass, otherwise he was trying to run consistent laps and keep up the pace. With no plans to adjust the truck he said he'll just "leave it up to the driver."

"My truck was really good and I haven't even worked on it" was what Jeremy Kortz had to say, after winning the 'B' heat and finishing seventh overall. Running the same setup on his Agama A8T with the shocks leaned in on the front and rear towers, Kortz crashed on the back section on his first lap and lost five seconds. Commenting that he felt that Pro-Line Rubber was an advantage so far this weekend (ed note: they had six drivers in the top ten) Kortz said he might switch from X3 to X2 as the weather warms up.

Also from the 'B' heat, Billy Fischer had a "pretty decent" run on his way to ninth fastest for the round. He bobbled on the second lap and then ran clean until three laps to go, when two trucks ahead of him collided on the long middle double and he checked up to miss them, but cased the landing and bounced wide in the following corner. Fischer said the track was very different in this morning's final warm-up and it was difficult to resist making changes to his truck, and plans to go heavier in shock oil for the second round today as the weather gets hotter - with the added benefit of keeping his truck more consistent throughout the run, as it got harder to drive at about the halfway mark.