So the 2014 Reedy Race of Champions has finished up and coming down to the very last race, Ryan Cavalieri takes the win in dramatic fashion. Before going into the last round of 4wd, it looked like the overall was all wrapped up for Maifield even when he had a mechanical and failed to start one of his 4wd heats. Unfortunately, Maifield had a tough grid position on the last round and was unable to successfully come through the pack to secure his 1st Reedy Race win. Maifield finished 6th and left it in the hands last year’s champion — Ryan Cavalieri.

This opened the door for Cav who then needed to finish 2nd to tie or finish 1st to win the overall by a point. As champions do…..he rose to the occasion. Congrats to Ryan Cavalieri as he successfully defends his Reedy title and kicks off the new year in winning fashion!

Photos were all courtesy of Red RC and their fabulous team. Highlights, updates, and photos were all awesome over the entire event and congrats to them for doing such an amazing job. Please visit their EVENTS page or their normal website for more info and news. Cheers guys!

PDF of the entire Invitational Results by Red RC.

Here is Cav’s car from the Reedy Race.

 
I’m glad Cav decided to run with the turnbuckle brace as I’ve seen a lot of setups lately that tell you to run without it with the shorty pack sideways. To me, the idea of running without it seems very trivial. Okay, take it off and you have a bit more traction, but the downer is that the car is constantly flexing and bowing like crazy. The more forces the rear end has applied to it, the more forces it returns so you have this inconsistent flexing rear end that is suppose to give you “more” traction? Don’t get me wrong, I believe a bit of chassis flex is good and makes a car more drivable, but add flex just at the rear of the car this way doesn’t make much sense and more of a band-aid then dialed setup. Maybe in stock this trick is ‘runable’ without the brace, but in mod I think it’s a different story. I also notice Cav’s saddle pack is all the way back, which he normally runs forward.

The only thing that looks different on Cav’s car is the Sanwa shorty servo. I’ve been predicting that shorty servos are going to gain in popularity just like shorty packs. For so long, shorty servo’s just didn’t have enough power or have enough speed, but as technology advances the ability to run shorty servos is definitely becoming more evident. It’s an option and a way to change the feel of the car without doing too much. You can take as much as 20 – 30 grams of weight off the front making the front end more active and quicker. At the same time, it moves the weight bias more towards the rear giving you more forward traction coming out of turns. Simply put, there is less weight for the rear to push forward thus making acceleration quicker.
 
The front of the car looks quite normal for a C4.2. Carbon plastics, 2 hole caster blocks, green springs, standard shock locations. Basically why change the front if it’s so good?! The rear of the car however, is very different front the standard C4.2 kit. The plastic rear bulkhead is replaced with an aluminum option that is neither JConcepts, GHEA, or AE. It also has the vertical ballstud option which is very, very nice. Next, the CF tower is different from stock. The B44 wing mounts look like they are closer together which lets you use the standard wings without the ghetto funky cuts. Last major thing that Cav has on his Reedy winning car is the GHEA narrow suspension holders. Can’t be for sure until there’s a setup sheet out there, but the color is definitely GHEA.