Anderson takes Q1 of Touring Car at NYGP
Having kicked off qualifying at the Montech New York Grand Prix with a TQ run in 1:12 Modified, Awesomatix’s Kemp Anderson concluded the first round with a TQ run in the Speedzone Modified Touring Car class. With Sam Isaacs topping seeding at the 360v2 indoor carpet track, a mistake from the ROAR National Champion would allow Anderson to take the round by 1.6-seconds, the American duo having the edge on NYGP first time visitors Lucas Urbain and Jan Ratheisky, the two European’s having very different Stateside racing experience. Despite a crash that cost him over one & half seconds & promote team-mate Ratheisky to fourth, Drew Ellis would complete the Top 5 for Xray.
Summing up his TQ run, Anderson said, ‘The car is pretty good and I was just trying to run a consistent 5-minutes. I got lucky Sam tapped out towards the end and then I could just hold my line.’ On his car, he said, ‘the car felt great up front, I think I lost grip about half way through so we’ll see if we can work on set-up a little bit for the next one.’ Asked about switching back and forth between Touring Car and 1:12, he said, ‘It takes a couple of warm-up laps to adjust be usually it’s not too bad.’
Asked about his P2 for the round, Isaacs explained, ‘I clipped the corner and kind of spun out. The car was alright but I had to push it pretty hard to keep up with Kemp so we’ve got to think about changes to make to get more speed in the car. Asked what changes he had in mind, he said, ‘I think I need to get a little more turn in so we’ll look at that.’ On the track consistency, as the winner of the US Nationals in Touring Car here back in March, albeit on a different layout he said, ‘you loose a little bit in the tyres towards the end of the run but really the track is very consistent and you can run your hot lap anytime in the run.’
With the NYGP making his first time to ever race on US black carpet, on his P3 in Q1 Urbain said, ‘I pushed my way around the track with understeer. My stuff won’t turn and I don’t have enough grip especially compared to those guys (those guys being his team-mates Anderson and Isaacs).’ The new crowned French Champion continued, ‘that has been the story for the last day and a half so I still have to figure it out and adapt the car for me and what I want from it. These two obviously are very used to this and know what they are doing and know what to expect and what they can and can’t get and work their way around it.’ Asked if he is running a similar set-up to the Americans he replied, ‘I would say it is not too far from what Kemp is driving. His set-up his based on what I run at ETS and I made the changes he made to adapt it to here and I am working my round it from there. It’s the same kind of philosophy but I need more time to get used to it. I need to maybe adapt my driving and also knowing what to expect and is possible to have and what I should give up on. It’s just a matter of connecting the dots step by step and figuring it out.’
Running in both Mod and Super Stock in Touring plus 1:12, on his P4 in Mod Touring Car, Ratheisky said, ‘It was pretty hard to drive because I made some big changes. We are using the new platform and it’s the first time for me on this carpet and traction and also I’m making the switch from outdoor to indoor so I am struggling a bit for knowledge of what to do. We made huge changes each run so as to learn and I think now I will go back to what I know was good in practice.’ Asked what the latest change had done to the car, ‘it made it pushy and then I had to force the car too much to go fast into the corner and it just steps out when you throttle too hard.’ On the new X4’26, only Ratheisky and Ellis are running the car here, the Slovakian manufacturer’s newest touring car kit not yet arrived in the US, the German said he and Ellis are working well together but he admits it is not the same as the big driver base they normally have at races. A driver who has a wealth of US Touring Car racing including having attended the Snowbirds earlier this year, this is his first time to 360v2 and he’s a fan of the layout which he described as ‘technical and fast’ adding ‘and it’s forgivable which is great compared to US races from the past. I love it and I really want to come back.’
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