ROAR NATS: Phend wins Truck round two, secures share of overall

0 June 20, 2014, 12:47 p.m.

6/20/2014

By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC

In a near replay of the first round, Dakotah Phend led all but one lap of the second round in the Truck division and set the fastest time, securing at least a tie for the overall top spot. The TLR driver's time was just two seconds slower than what he set in the first round, and the gap back to second place Ty Tessmann was nearly the same as well - nearly 1.5 seconds. Think he had a bit of déjà vu?

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Dakotah hit the pipe in the off camber corner, and twice had to overshoot turns and slide through the marbles in order to dodge cars that were crashed in the racing line, but Phend wasn't shaken up. "A lot of pressure is taken off," said Phend, continuing on to say that qualifying is more important in the Truck class since traditional qualifying will be used to sort the main events rather than the ladder system for Buggy. With no plans to change anything for Q3 tomorrow morning, Phend did say that he'll run larger pin tires in the fourth round to prepare for the main event if he can wrap up the overall TQ.

Finishing second to Phend yet again, Tessmann too said his truck felt the same as the first round. He simply "made too many mistakes by trying to push too hard" and is still having trouble missing the hole on the center double that shoots his truck into the air. He won't make any changes to the truck for Saturday, simply trying to "drive better."

Mike Truhe changed his front camber link after the first round "to make the truck roll through the corners better" and it worked well. Having a big crash in the first round that knocked him down the order, the Serpent driver said the results are "too close to make mistakes." He's not sure what he'll change to improve his Cobra S811T TE for tomorrow.

Describing his truck as "okay," Ryan Maifield said it took a while to get used to the diff oil and shock changes he made after Q1 to stiffen up the truck for the high speeds of the track. He said, "the first three minutes were hit and miss" said it was hard to adapt, then he had "four clean minutes" that saved the run. Ryan hadn't decided what to change for Saturday, but said he wanted to calm the truck's entry steering but gain more through the middle and exit.

It's a little loose and it needs more steering, but that's just the track," said A Main Hobbies driver and tenth qualifier Curtis Door, of his Kyosho ST-RR Evo. Overall, he said the truck was "easy to drive" even though he bobbled a few times through the double-triple and the tight 180's on the left side of the track. Curtis has made changes every run, adjusting diff oil, caster, and ride height all trying to find more exit steering. He wasn't sure yet what to try next.