2013 Cactus Classic: Fourth Round Report

The fourth qualifying round at any race is always the most tense; after all, it’s the final chance to improve one’s qualifying position and if you haven’t put in two decent runs in the first three chances the last round is more important than ever. The overall TQ for most of the classes at this year’s Cactus Classic hadn’t been decided after three rounds, leaving the first spot on the grid wide open and ready for the taking.

Modified Truck, however, was not one of the classes in which anyone doubted what was going to happen. After an uncharacteristic 3rd place finish in the third round, Ryan Cavalieri returned to the form that saw him handily TQ the first two rounds with his fastest run, and largest margin of victory, of the weekend. He led every lap and finished five and a half seconds up on Dustin Evans, who earned his second-second place finish in Stadium Truck (he’d lose the tiebreaker to Ryan Maifield and will start third on Sunday). Evans edged Joern Neumann by just five-hundredths of a second, ahead of a battle for fourth in which Ryan Maifield beat Jared Tebo by little more than eight-tenths.

Modified Stadium Truck – Round Four
1. Ryan Cavalieri
2. Dustin Evans
3. Joern Neumann
4. Ryan Maifield
5. Jared Tebo
6. Nolan Anderson
7. Billy Fischer
8. Ricky Gaynor
9. Cory Crosley
10. Mitchell Gardner

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The final round of Modified 2WD Short Course was the most competitive yet, with Ryan Maifield, Ryan Cavalieri, Ryan Lutz, and Dustin Evans battling all race long. Maifield was third with just a few laps to go, but put on a late race charge to be the only one to make it by for the 14th lap and sew up not only the ground, but the overall TQ with his first top qualifying run since Friday morning. Both Lutz and Cavalieri held the lead at one point, and both crashed on the eleventh lap to let Maifield by for the win and overall TQ.

Modified 2WD Short Course – Round Four
1. Ryan Maifield
2. Ryan Cavalieri
3. Ryan Lutz
4. Dustin Evans
5. Chris Wheeler
6. Matt Castellano
7. Brian Kinwald
8. Max Flurer
9. Charles Hicks
10. Jason Corl

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Billy Fischer TQ’d his first round of Modified 4WD Short Course since the first round of the weekend, making him the only driver to win two rounds and thus locking up the overall TQ spot. Hupo Honigl had his best run of the weekend, finishing ahead of teammates Joern Neumann (who was in the B heat) and Ryan Lutz and Dakotah Phend rounded out the top five after narrowly edging out Travis Amezcua by less than eight-tenths.

Modified 4WD Short Course – Round Four
1. Billy Fischer
2. Hupo Honigl
3. Joern Neumann
4. Ryan Lutz
5. Dakotah Phend
6. Travis Amezcua
7. Trevor Clement
8. Alex Guerrero
9. David Jensen
10. Charles Hicks

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A disastrous crash with two laps to go dropped Dustin Evans, who grabbed the lead just two laps into the race, from first to fourth while Ryan Maifield took full advantage of the late mistake to grab the round win. Evans’ crash also promoted Naoto Matsukura and Ryan Cavalieri to second and third, respectively. Most importantly for Cavalieri, however, is that Matsukura is not the one who TQ’d the round – that secured the top spot for him without resorting to the tiebreaker.

Modified 2WD Buggy – Round Four
1. Ryan Maifield
2. Naoto Matsukura
3. Ryan Cavalieri
4. Dustin Evans
5. Jared Tebo
6. Joern Neumann
7. Cody King
8. Cody Turner
9. Travis Amezcua
10. Billy Fischer

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Like he did in Modified Stadium Truck, Ryan Cavalieri took matters into his own hands to ensure that no one would TQ two rounds and challenge him for the overall spot by winning the fourth round outright. The slowest of his three TQ’s came in the slowest round overall for Modified 4WD Buggy, but left him over two and a half seconds ahead of Jorn Neumann, with the top three finishing in the same order overall as well.

Modified 4WD Buggy – Round Four
1. Ryan Cavalieri
2. Joern Neumann
3. Ryan Maifield
4. Ryan Lutz
5. Dakotah Phend
6. Naoto Matsukura
7. Hupo Honigl
8. Cory Crosley
9. Brent Thielke
10. Cody Turner