2026 ROAR 1/8 Nationals: Dakotah Phend is the US ebuggy champion

Photo: JConcepts (source)

The 2026 ROAR 1/8 Nationals have delivered their ebuggy verdict, and it took the very last chequered flag to find out the name of the US champion: Dakotah Phend. The American driver follows Ryan Maifield on the week’s honours list, the latter having already taken the electric truggy and then the nitro truggy titles at the same meeting.

2026 ROAR 1/8 Nationals: the ebuggy title settled on fastest lap

The three A-main format used for the ebuggy final lived up to its promise: each of the three legs went to a different winner, with nobody able to lock up the weekend before the last race. In that decisive A3, Dakotah Phend had to hold off a charging Ryan Maifield all the way to the flag to take the win.

In the final count, Phend finished level on points with Phi-Long Nguyen, who had set the fastest time in qualifying earlier in the weekend. It was the fastest lap set in the race that served as the tie-breaker, in Phend’s favour — the narrowest possible margin for a national title.

Final ebuggy standings at the ROAR 1/8 Nationals

1. Dakotah Phend
2. Phi-Long Nguyen
3. Seth VanDalen
4. Mason Fuller
5. Kaden Fuller
6. Ryan Maifield
7. Jonah Wilson
8. Chase Lemieux
9. Jared Wiggins
10. Spencer Rivkin
11. Ryan Cavalieri
12. Jermaine Robinson
13. Spencer Heckert
14. Brandon Rose
15. Aydin Horne

Seth VanDalen completes the podium, ahead of Mason Fuller and Kaden Fuller, who post a family one-two in fourth and fifth. Ryan Maifield, a double truggy champion a few days earlier, has to settle for sixth in the blue riband class.

A Nationals week dominated by a handful of drivers

The entry list for this ebuggy final gathered most of the American 1/8 off-road heavyweights, from Spencer Rivkin to Ryan Cavalieri by way of Brandon Rose and Aydin Horne. All of them had already been on the grid in the truggy finals earlier in the week, which gives a measure of how deep the field was: of the fifteen classified drivers, most had already contested at least one other A-main at the 2026 ROAR 1/8 Nationals.