Event: Neo12
Dates: April 6-8, 2012
Track: Harper Adams University
We had a great showing at the 2012 NeoBuggy Race, placing Ryan Maifield, and JR Mitch directly into the semi final, with Jörn Neumann into the 1/4 semi.
Main Day
It’s a rainy, dreary day, but the action is heating up inside, as the semi finals work their way towards the A. Tony Truman bumped into the 1/4 semi, and had a good run, but it ended there. Jörn Neumann bumped from the 1/4, to the semi, and put a positive on his rough week of qualifying.
Going into the semi’s, Maifield used his front grid position to get a good run in, and take his place in the final. JR had a rougher go from near the back of the field. He put in some good laps, and drove well, but missed the cut of the top 7. Placing him into the Last Chance Qualifier. Again, with a poor grid position, and a rough first lap, he was able to move from last, and move up to the 6th position. But a bad last lap, dropped him to 8th, finishing his weekend.
In an attempt to cut some time out of the program, the crowd favorite/driver feared knock out qualifying runs were tossed aside, and the normal semi finishing order determined the grid, for the A final.
At the tone, a freight train of cars made several laps around the technical circuit, before any separation became evident. The top three cars made a small break away, and coming into the first pit stops, it was still anyone’s race. Maifield took the lead as Tesseman went wide to enter the pit lane. Maifield was next, but had issues with traffic on his pit exit, and lost touch with Tesseman. At this point, Tebo had the lead, and never looked back.
Ryan ran a good race, keeping his pace with a comfortable third place in the end, using Hybrid tires for the 45 minute final.
After the race, Maifield said “after I lost touch with the leaders, it is hard to know your pace, and I was out there by myself.” However, he was satisfied with finishing on the podium.
Thanks go out to Neobuggy for the great event, and Brandon, and the crew at Live RC for the help they provided me.
This concludes the 2012 edition of the Neo, with the long week coming to an end. Now it’s a full day of travel to get back to sunny, warm Florida and a trip to Chipotle…or two.
Cheers
