This past week HRCR in in Hayden, Idaho hosted the 2024 ROAR 1/8th Scale Off-Road Nitro Nationals. The track crew provided an epic tricky layout for racers of all skill levels to test their speed. The best in the country showed up to battle it out for the title of North American National Champion in Nitro Buggy and Nitro Truggy.
Open practice day was met with wet and rainy weather, but the west of the weekend was met with great weather and great competition. Moving into seeding practice the team got to work finding speed and sorting out the setup work. The following drivers would find the most early speed.
Nitro Truggy: Mason Fuller would top the charts with Phi-Long Nguyen just hundredths of a second behind after their fastest three consecutive laps. Dakotah Phend and Ryan Maifield would be 3rd and 4th fastest.
Nitro Buggy: Mason Fuller would once again be fastest this time over a second ahead of the field. Ryan Maifield would be 2nd with Dakotah Phend and Seth VanDalen 4th and 5th.
Qualifying would be split across 2 days with 2 rounds per day. The best 2 out of 4 rounds would count towards the starting order in the mains.
Nitro Truggy: Ryan Maifield and Mason Fuller would split the 4 round TQs for the class which would result in a tie for TQ with Fuller narrowly getting the overall on the tie breaker. Ryan Maifield would have to settle with a 2nd place start. Dakotah Phend would round out the top 3 with Jared Wiggins starting 5th.
Nitro Buggy: Dakotah Phend had a flawless qualifying experience in Nitro Buggy taking the TQ in all four rounds. Ryan Maifield would have the next best scores with a 2nd and a 3rd to start 2nd with Jared Wiggins and Mason Fuller finding themselves in another tie for 3rd this time with Jared winning. Brandon Rose finished up qualifying in 5th.
The Main Events Sunday would see ladder finals for the Nitro Buggy class and alphabet mains for the Nitro Truggy class. TQ in Nitro Buggy, Dakotah Phend, went directly to the main final starting on the pole. The rest of the top 23 drivers went to the semi-finals with more added after bumps.
The following drivers qualified out of the semi-finals to join Dakotah Phend in the Nitro Buggy main: Mason Fuller, Phi-Long Nguyen, Ryan Maifield, Jared Wiggins, Spencer Rivkin, Brandon Rose, Joe Bornhorst, Joey Bourdon, and Lee Setser.
Nitro Truggy Main: Mason Fuller had control of the Nitro Truggy main for most of the first half of the final with Ryan Maifield hot on his heels. Maifield would get to the lead and be able to build a steady gap with the help of some lap traffic. By the end the lead would be over 20 seconds. Mason Fuller would finish up 2nd with Dakotah Phend about 5 seconds back in 3rd. Jared Wiggins and Cole Tollard finished up 4th and 5th to round out the top 5.
1st Ryan Maifield, 2nd Mason Fuller, 3rd Dakotah Phend
Nitro Buggy Main: The Nitro Buggy main was an absolute battle for most of the affair. Dakotah Phend, Mason Fuller, Ryan Maifield, and Phi-Long Nguyen would all lead before the halfway point. By the 2nd half we were down to just Maifield and Phend at the front. The two would swap positions multiple times but with a quarter of the race left Ryan Maifield would pull out a healthy enough gap to take the win. Dakotah Phend would have to settle for 2nd with Phi-Long Nguyen getting a very popular 3rd. Brandon Rose would find himself in the top 5 with a 4th place finish!
1st Ryan Maifield, 2nd Dakotah Phend, 3rd Phi-Long Nguyen
Ryan Maifield would use A1 Rehab in the Nitro Buggy Main
Ryan Maifield would use A2 Relapse in the Nitro Truggy Main
Dakotah Phend would use A2 Relapse in the Nitro Buggy Main
Dakotah Phend would use Blue Relapse in Nitro Buggy Qualifying
