Chassis – Xray x4’26
Class – Modified Touring by Gravity RC
ESC – Hobbywing XR10Pro G3X
Motor – Team Zombie 6.0T
Battery – Team Zombie 4500mAh
Tyres – Gravity (Handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa M17S/PowerHD GTS2
Body – LensBodies Ghibli 3
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Awesomatix’s Sam Isaacs continues to set the Touring Car pace at the MonTech New York Grand Prix, the defending champion making it 3 from 3 as he set a new TQ pace in the third round of qualifying. Improving his overnight TQ pace of the Gravity RC Modified Touring Car class by 2-seconds, Isaacs led an Awesomatix 1-2 in the penultimate qualifier with team-mate Kemp Anderson having his best run 1.5-seconds back. Having held P2 at the end of Friday’s qualifying action, Xray’s Keven Hebert set the third fastest time for the round ahead of team-mate Bryce Frechette with Xray’s US team manager Drew Ellis completing the Top 5.
On taking his 3rd TQ run of the event, Isaacs said, ‘That was a pretty good run, the car had good speed but was a little hard to drive so I made a couple of errors.’ He added, ‘I’ll try to make it a little easier to drive the last qualifier and clean up my driving hopefully.’ Asked if he could maintain his advantage over his rivals for the final qualifier and lock up the TQ honours for tomorrow’s final, he said, ‘Yeah maybe but it’s hard to say. The track is getting a little bit better, it’s a tenth faster than it was yesterday so with rocket round anything can happen and there are a lot of fast guys here so we still got to try keep pushing I think.’
We made a pretty big improvement for the last run, finding almost 4-seconds over the run, he explained, ‘we made a few changes and it felt pretty good.’ Asked what he found that was lacking yesterdays, the 24-year-0ld said, ‘just overall we found a better balance in the car. It has been a little understeery all week. We found some steering today although it did get a little pushy at the end of that run but we’ll make one small change for the last one and see how it is.’
The 2024 Mod Touring Car winner in New Rochelle, Hebert was pleased with his own performance in Q3 but less so with his car’s. The Canadian said, ‘I drove really good, I just didn’t have the pace. I drove a perfect race and was 2-seconds back, I just need more steering & more pace but I am running out of ideas.’ He added, ‘We’ll try something for the last qualifier but it is going to be difficult to challenge for the front but we’ll give it everything.’ Asked when driving the car if it felt it was missing something, he said, ‘It’s in the car because I drove a perfect race, I ran a 99.5% so I don’t think I can drive much better with the car I have right now. All I have to do is find a little more pace and I think the driving is there. I need to get the car to finish the corner better.’
Ollie Payne has opened Day 2 of qualifying at the MonTech New York Grand Prix with a TQ run in the third round, the Excelerate RC driver upping pace in the TQ Wire 1:12 Modified class with the first 57-lap run on the 360v2 RC Raceway track. Holding the overnight TQ thanks to his time in the opening qualifier yesterday with Xray’s Keven Hebert in second after topping Q2, this morning all Top 4 drivers improved their times in New Rochelle. While Payne’s second TQ run showed he still has a clear advantage over his rivals, behind the British driver it was a lot closer as Awesomatix’s Sam Isaacs moved up into the number 2 spot. Improving on his Q2 topping time by 8/10ths, Hebert would post the third fastest time, the Canadian’s deficit to defending NYGP Champion Isaacs 4/10th of a second. Despite a number of errors, including a 10-second opening lap, 2024 NYGP Champion Kemp Anderson ran his fastest 8-minutes stopping the clock 2-seconds off of Hebert. Taking 5th for the round, NYGP promoter Donny Lia wouldn’t improve on his Q2 time and the Cerberus Racing driver remains P5 in the rocket round qualifying ranking.
‘Very good’ was Payne’s reaction to his TQ run, him having a full lap on the second fastest driver at the end of the 8-minutes. He continued, ‘I made a tyre change last night and the car was a lot better. I had a little bit more stability in the car even with the tyre, it was just much much better to drive.’ Looking to the fourth & final qualifier, the reigning British National Champion, who is also holding the TQ in the Cerberus Racing 1:12 Super Stock class of which he is the defending champion, said, ‘I will leave it as is and just try a little bit of a cleaner run. The car was so good it kind of caught me out a little bit. Yesterday I was kind of having to drive a little bit on edge and always get power on as the car would half spin and today it just wasn’t the case so I over drove it in the beginning and once that settled down it was good.’
On his first qualifier of the day, Isaacs said, ‘It was a clean run but the car was pulling a little bit to the outside of the straight away and pushing quite bad in the sweeper, I think partially because of that but also because of the car set-up. I was trying to turn the dual rate up during the run help a little, but I definitely need more steering to make the car more competitive.’ Asked if he knew what he needs to change for the steering he needs, he replied, ‘I am not sure if it’s with the tyres or if it’s maybe a little bit more droop all around on the car but I need to make a substantial change I think to get more steering.’
Hebert summed up his Q3 effort as ‘not very good, it just pushed too much.’ He explained, ‘I made a change in the rear end and now it just pushed, it didn’t turn at all in the sweeper so yeh no pace this time.’ The Quebec racer added, ‘I will revert back but also make another change on the rear end just to try make it steer a little bit more in the sweeper and hope it works. Now Ollie has a good gap ahead but we’ll try to reduce it as much as possible.’
Chassis – Cerberus Racing Vektor 12
Class – 1:12 17.5 by Jaco
ESC – Hobbywing Xerun XR10 Pro 1S HD
Motor – JDR 17.5T
Battery – SMC 8000mAh
Tyres (Handout) – Jaco
Radio/Servo – FlySky Noble NB4 Pro+/ MKS HV50P
Body – Mach-S
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Chassis – Awesomatix A12X
Class – 1:12 Modified by TQ Wire
ESC – Hobbywing Xerun XR10 Pro 1S HD
Motor – Hobbywing G3 3.5T
Battery – Team EAM 9200mAh
Tyres – Jaco Mint
Radio/Servo – Sanwa M17S/ Sanwa PGS HX
Body – MonTech M20
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Having been eliminated from the opening qualifier, Xray’s Keven Hebert has TQ’d the second of the TQ Wire 1:12 Modified class at the MonTech NYGP. Collecting a spun car in Q1 that led to a DNF, Hebert would again be the main challenger to Excelerate RC’s Ollie Payne who took the opening round with a dominant run. With the British driver looking on a target for 2 from 2, as the qualifier reached the mid way point a slight touch of the curbing coming onto the main straight would result in his Prodigy 12 stepping out with the impact messing up his body. Losing 5-seconds, while he initially resumed running in P3 he would shortly pull off to prevent any further damage. Afterwards Payne felt he should have made the tyre change he was considering after Q1. With Payne out, this promoted Hebert to the TQ pace and the Canadian maintained his form to take it by 1.129 seconds over the Awesomatix of Kemp Anderson. Finishing P2 in the opening round, defending champion Sam Isaacs would tap out in style at the 2-minute mark. Having had a DNF in Q1 and been the cause of Hebert’s DNF, Donny Lia would complete the Top 3, the man behind the NYGP still getting to terms with his new Cerberus Racing chassis which is debuting this weekend.
‘Finally made a full run’, was Hebert’s reaction after TQ’ing the second round. He continued, ‘the car was good but unfortunately it picked up a push about 4-minutes in so I couldn’t really challenge for a TQ. I knew I was really close to TQ but just couldn’t really challenge after 4-minutes. Ollie had a crash I think 4-minutes in so I just cruised to the finish line. Hopefully I find a little bit for tomorrow but the gap is getting closer and hopefully we can challenge him tomorrow.’ On his car set-up, Xray using the event to run a prototype of their X12, Hebert said, ‘I just need to get a little bit more steering for the last 4-minutes of the run to really be there. He (Payne) starts off a little bit better than me, my car is a little more edgy up front but then it picks up push, where I think his car stays a little bit more consistent throughout the run. So we need to make the car steer more through the second half of the run and I think I will be right there.’
‘The car is definitely improved from Round 1’, was Anderson view on his Q2 performance. He continued, ‘we still have a little more speed to find but we are making progress.’ A faster run than his opening qualifier he said, ‘It was a pretty clean run but I had a couple of bobbles at the end. I didn’t know I was that close to Keven. I was still pushing pretty hard to see how much battery power I had left and went over a few curbs at the end.’ With the track open for practice this evening before the resumption of qualifying tomorrow, Round 3 & 4 on the schedule, on changes to his set-up the 24-year-old said, ‘I have another car I am going to try it and see how it is in comparison. I don’t think it is going to be any better but its a different chassis so we will try it out.’
A long time Awesomatix driver but making the change to Cyrul’s new brand, on the second round of qualifying Lia said, ‘it was definitely better that time.’ He explained, ‘I am just trying different things because it is a total new car to me. This is my first weekend with it, and that was maybe the third or fourth battery I have on the car, so with that being said it’s definitely a good start.’ He added, ‘I am trying things to learn and see how it works and figure things out.’ The veteran 1:12 specialist, who has the car’s designer Josh Cyrul helping him out between runs, added, ‘I’m not going to figure it out here this weekend but you know we got to start somewhere.’ Describing Q2 as ‘somewhat clean’ after he ‘had like 3-seconds of problems’, he added, ‘I’m definitely way off of Ollie’s pace but really not that far off a couple of others so we’ll keep throwing stuff at it and see what sticks.’