{"id":25266,"date":"2026-03-20T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/?p=25266"},"modified":"2026-05-05T04:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:02:20","slug":"2026-dirt-nitro-challenge-jconcepts-team-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/rc-racing\/2026\/03\/2026-dirt-nitro-challenge-jconcepts-team-report\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Dirt Nitro Challenge JConcepts Team Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 Dirt Nitro Challenge took place in Perris, California<\/a> this past weekend with a little over 700 entries venturing west for some fantastic weather and racing! JConcepts<\/a> had a large team of event support and drivers on hand to help with anything and everything racers could ask about.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The event included one full day of practice on Wednesday with all car classes before switching to Ebuggy and Truggy qualifying on Thursday, Etruggy and Buggy qualifying Friday, Ebuggy and Truggy Main Events Saturday, and Etruggy and Buggy Main Events Sunday.<\/p>\n

Seeding Practice:<\/strong>
\nPro Buggy: 1st Brandon Rose, 2nd Seth VanDalen, 3rd Juan Carlos Canas
\nPro Ebuggy: 2nd Spencer Rivkin
\nPro Truggy: 1st Seth VanDalen, 3rd Jermaine Robinson
\nIntermediate Buggy: 1st Benny Komerian, 2nd Travis Horn, 3rd Dylan Nelson
\nIntermediate Ebuggy: 1st Travis Horn, 2nd Trevor Olins, 3rd Renato Tradardi Jr.
\nIntermediate Truggy: 1st Travis Horn, 3rd Dylan Bartlett
\nIntermeidate Etruggy: 1st Travis Horn, 3rd Trevor Olins
\n40+ Buggy: 2nd Paul Ciccarello
\n40+ Ebuggy: 1st Brent Thielke, 2nd Paul Ciccarello
\n40+ Etruggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello, 2nd Smiley Henn<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Moving into Thrusday Qualifying drivers would hit the track just with their Ebuggies and Truggies to battle it out. Driver would have 3 rounds of qualifying for each class with the best 2\/3 rounds counting in a qual-points format.<\/p>\n

Truggy and Ebuggy Qualifying:<\/strong>
\nPro Truggy: 1st Ryan Maifield, 2nd Seth VanDalen
\nPro Ebuggy: 2nd Ryan Maifield, 3rd Juan Carlos Canas
\nIntermediate Truggy: 1st Travis Horn, \u00a03rd Benny Komerian
\nIntermediate Ebuggy: 1st Travis Horn, 2nd Benny Komerian
\n40+ Ebuggy: 2nd Paul Ciccarello, 3rd Brent Thielke
\n50+ Ebuggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello, 2nd Rusty Mihelich<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday the other two classes would hit the track with 3 rounds of Nitro Buggy and Etruggy qualifying.<\/p>\n

Buggy and Etruggy Qualifying:
\nPro Buggy: 2nd Juan Carlos Canas, 3rd Spencer Rivkin
\nPro Etruggy: 1st Juan Carlos Canas, 2nd Seth VanDalen
\nIntermediate Buggy: 1st Travis Horn, 2nd Maddy Long
\nIntermediate Etruggy: 1st Donato Tradardi, 3rd Travis Horn
\n40+ Buggy: 3rd Paul Ciccarello
\n40+ Etruggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello, 2nd Smiley Henn
\n50+ Buggy: 1st Paul Ciccarello, 2nd Donny Vinkemulder<\/p>\n

Saturday and Sunday would be main event days check out all of the results from both days below!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pro Buggy:<\/strong> Dakotah Phend would get out to a fairly clean lead early, the big mover at the start was Ryan Maifield who would get all the way up to 2nd before suffering a failure. Seth VanDalen, Camden Lime, and Juan Carlos would have mid-race surges to get to the front and with Phend making mistakes VanDalen would ultimately secure the lead and not let it go to the end. Canas would get by Lime to get 2nd and 3rd at the finish.<\/p>\n

1st Seth VanDalen (JC), 2nd Juan Carlos Canas (JC), 3rd Camden Lime<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pro Truggy:<\/strong> Ryan Maifield would lead the first 2\/3rds of the race before breaking a screw in the front end of his truck. Mason Fuller and Seth VanDalen who had been battling it out for 2nd found themselves battling for the lead and Seth would ultimately pull away to take the win. Mason Fuller would have to settle for a 2nd place finish with Ryan Lutz just 3 seconds back in 3rd.<\/p>\n

1st Seth VanDalen (JC), 2nd Mason Fuller (JC), 3rd Ryan Lutz<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pro Ebuggy:<\/strong> Pro Ebuggy was the Camden Lime show leading tone-to-tone but that wasn\u2019t without a full 10 minute battle with Juan Carlos Canas who raced with poise and class and would finish up 2nd on the night. Dakotah Phend would finish up 3rd after starting 7th for the main event.<\/p>\n

1st Camden Lime, 2nd Juan Carlos Canas (JC), 3rd Dakotah Phend<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pro Etruggy:<\/strong> Juan Carlos would lead start to finish in Etruggy as well as being the only driver to get the 17th lap for a victory lap. VanDalen would run 2nd all race before a late race mistake would have him finish 3rd and promote Dakotah Phend to 2nd.<\/p>\n

1st Juan Carlos Canas (JC), 2nd Dakotah Phend, 3rd Seth VanDalen (JC)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Intermediate Buggy:<\/strong> 1st Travis Horn (JC), 2nd Benny Komerian (JC), 3rd AJ Rodriguez<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Intermediate Truggy:<\/strong> 1st Dylan Peterson, 2nd Donato Tradardi (JC), 3rd Ryder Antill<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Intermediate Ebuggy:<\/strong> 1st Travis Horn (JC), 2nd Donato Tradardi (JC), 3rd Dylan Peterson<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Intermediate Etruggy:<\/strong> 1st Travis Horn (JC), 2nd AJ Rodriguez, 3rd Trevor Olins (JC)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

40+ Buggy:<\/strong> 1st Tyler Brown, 2nd Paul Ciccarello (JC), 3rd Greg Degani<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

40+ Ebuggy<\/strong>: 1st Richard Saxton, 2nd Brent Thielke (JC), 3rd Scott Belcastro<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

40+ Etruggy:<\/strong> 1st Paul Ciccarello (JC), 2nd Smiley Henn (JC), 3rd Josh Nelson<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

50+ Buggy:<\/strong> 1st Paul Ciccarello (JC), 2nd Donny Vinkemulder (JC), 3rd Lee General<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

50+ Ebuggy:<\/strong> 1st Paul Ciccarello (JC), 2nd Paul Thacker, 3rd Jeff Gee<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sportsman Buggy:<\/strong> 1st Santaigo Vallejo, 2nd Jacob Cervantes, 3rd Reid Saunders<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sportsman Truggy:<\/strong> 1st Guerin Villegas, 2nd Marc Robinson, 3rd Scott Sexton<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sportsman Etruggy:<\/strong> 1st Reid Saunders, 2nd Chevelle Keates, 3rd Junior Castro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2026 Dirt Nitro Challenge took place in Perris, California this past weekend with a little over 700 entries venturing west for [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":25267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-25266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rc-racing","tag-jconcepts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rctracks.io\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}