2025 Dirt Nitro Challenge JConcepts Team Report

The JConcepts team had a fantastic weekend at the 2025 Dirt Nitro Challenge taking all of the Pro Class Titles with Ryan Maifield and Seth VanDalen as well as a multitude of other classes.

Practice day is always a strenuous one being the only day of the week where drivers run all of their cars, unfortunately it would also be a day with rain in the afternoon meaning most nitro buggy entries would not be able to hit the track with their cars until qualifying.

Thursday qualifying would be for Nitro Truggy and Ebuggy, Friday would be for Nitro Buggy and Etruggy. Rain would be in the forecast again on Thursday postponing the remainder of Nitro Truggy and Ebuggy qualifying to Friday morning. The following racers for JConcepts found the most success.

Truggy/Ebuggy Qualifying:

Pro Ebuggy: 1st Juan Carlos Canas, 2nd Dakotah Phend
Pro Truggy: 1st Ryan Maifield, 2nd Dakotah Phend
Intermediate Ebuggy: 3rd Trevor Olins
40+ Ebuggy: 1st Brent Thielke, 2nd Paul Ciccarello
40+ Truggy: 2nd Brian Eiter, 3rd Donny Vinkemulder
50+ Ebuggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello, 2nd Marc Robinson

Moving onto Nitro Buggy and Etruggy qualifying we no longer saw anymore rain on the weekend and racing was green lit through Sunday.

Nitro Buggy/Etruggy Qualifying:

Pro Nitro Buggy: 1st Dakotah Phend, 2nd Ryan Maifield, 3rd Spencer Rivkin
Pro Etruggy: 1st Ryan Maifield, 2nd Dakotah Phend
Intermediate Etruggy: 1st Benny Komerian, 3rd Trevor Olins
40+ Nitro Buggy: 2nd Brent Thielke
40+ Etruggy: 1st Brian Eiter, 2nd Paul Ciccarello
50+ Nitro Buggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello, 2nd Donny Vinkemulder

Nitro Truggy and Ebuggy Main Day was fierce and lead to some spectacular storybook endings.

Pro Nitro Truggy: Ryan Maifield dominated the first half of the main event and just when it seemed like the event was wrapped up Seth VanDalen relentlessly forced his way into the picture. Seth would take over the lead 3/4 through the event and battle to the end with Maifield. Seth would prevail with Maifield less than a second behind. Spencer Heckert would round out the podium in 3rd.

1st Seth VanDalen (JC), 2nd Ryan Maifield (JC), 3rd Spencer Heckert

Pro Ebuggy: The Ebuggy main was chaos, Maifield would climb his way from 9th on the starting grid to 3rd in 2 laps and for the remainder of the event Juan Carlos Canas, Dakotah Phend, and Ryan Maifield would battle it out. Maifield would fight to the lead a few times and keep it at the end. Phend would finish up 2nd with Canas in 3rd.

1st Ryan Maifield (JC), 2nd Dakotah Phend (JC), 3rd Juan Carlos Canas (JC)

Intermediate Ebuggy: 1st Trevor Olins (JC), 2nd Dustin Gossett, 3rd AJ Schumacher

40+ Truggy: 1st Ryan Dunford, 2nd Greg Degani, 3rd Brian Eiter (JC)

40+ Ebuggy: 1st Richard Saxton, 2nd Brent Thielke (JC), 3rd Paul Ciccarello (JC)

50+ Ebuggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello (JC), 2nd Jeff Gee, 3rd Miguel Perez (JC)

Sunday racers moved into Nitro Buggy main events as well as Etruggy, check out where the team finished below.

Pro Buggy: The eventual podium of the race all lead the race at some point. Dakotah Phend would lead most of the first half, Maifield would be the next to lead a portion. Mason Fuller would then pass into the lead and pull away to a solid lead before some late race mistakes would see him fall back. Ryan Maifield would cross the stripe first taking the win.

1st Ryan Maifield (JC), 2nd Mason Fuller (JC), 3rd Dakotah Phend (JC)