Day 5 – Tessmann’s Brilliance
By Stephen Bess for NeoBuggy.net
If you tuned in to the Nitro Challenge coverage expecting to see anyone except Canada’s Ty Tessmann atop the podium, you wasted your time. Tessmann wrapped up his race weekend by capturing his second championship in less than 24-hours, winning the 1/8-scale nitro truggy title last night and the buggy title today having never relinquished the lead.
Unlike last night’s truggy race, Tessmann was challenged several times—at least as challenges to Tessmann go—by a hard charging David Ronnefalk of Kyosho and TLR’s Dakotah Phend, but both came up well short in the end. 3x Euro champion Reno Savoya of XRAY grabbed third place but never knocked on Tessmann’s rear bumper or mounted a serious threat for the lead. As our race recap details, it was all Tessmann, pretty much all the time in buggy and truggy, the two most prestigious classes at the Nitro Challenge.
As a competitor, Tessmann is fascinating. Ty is a mystery to many; how can he be so fast and consistent when he lives in a place called Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada? He’s a seemingly simple guy who likes RC racing and Panda Express.
It’s difficult to find fault with Tessmann and his program, which includes his father as his primary wrench, and his mother, who mans the fuel gun for all of Ty’s fuel stops. In a sport/hobby where being “cool,” unaffected and stylish seems to have taken over the drivers’ stand, it’s refreshing to watch Tessmann—the simple worker bee who stays quiet and lays the smack down—win and win convincingly.
He’s incredibly quiet, but he’s not unapproachable and he’s always polite. He wins, not with European engine tuners flown over to babysit his carb needles, but with his dad and mom in the pits. He appreciates winning so much, I’ve seen him cry tears of joy after races.
Every pro driver started RC racing as a hobby, and in the past, hobbies were enjoyed most between father and son. The current back-to-back-to-back Nitro Challenge 1/8 truck champion is simply a good kid who succeeds not in spite of his family but because of it. It’s my hope that the industry as a whole, and not just the Hot Bodies team, appreciates what it has in Ty Tessmann as an ambassador for RC racing.
We have a current champion who never screams on the driver’s stand, never disrespects his competitors or his teammates, and doesn’t smash radios and pout like an infant when things go wrong. Something tells me that Gord Tessman wouldn’t accept that type of behavior for a nano-second. When so many other pro racers seem most concerned with their flat billed hats, sponsor shirts and clunky oversized sunglasses, Tessmann chills quietly in the corner, out of the spotlight, until it’s time to get to work.
And then he’s a silent assassin. Perhaps we could all learn a lesson from Ty. When it comes to success, it’s not style, but substance, that matters.
