Isaacs is Touring Car Top Qualifier in New York
Awesomatix’s Sam Isaacs is the Top Qualifier of the Speedzone Modified Touring Car class at the 7th annual Montech NYGP. Winner of his latest ROAR Touring Car National title earlier this year at the 360v2 track in New Rochelle, he would secure pole for the track’s blue ribbon event with his time from the 3rd of the 4 rounds of qualifying. While he would lose out on the TQ in 1:12 Mod to Donny Lia in the final qualifier, track conditions for Q4 of Touring Car, the final heat of qualifying, would see no one improve on their times. Isaacs still topped the round 3.5-seconds ahead of NYGP debutant Lucas Urbain and Kemp Anderson, a driver who has attended every running of the Donny Lia organised race. For tomorrow’s A-Main starting grid it will be Anderson who starts second ahead of Urbain with Xray duo Jan Ratheisky, another NYGP first timer, and Drew Ellis completing the Top 5.
Pleased to secure the TQ having missed out in 1:12, on his final effort, the pace 1.5-seconds off his best, Isaacs said, ‘I think the track was a little bit off so I couldn’t match the Q3 times but a clean run none the less.’ Still happy with how his car worked on the slower track, asked if he would do anything different for the Main, the 31-year-old said, ‘I think I will mostly leave the car and just try to have a clean run. It should be a good race, it’s been a great event.’
Summing up qualifying, Anderson said, ‘The car feels ok I just made another mistake in the last one. Since the AC was off and it was so hot in here we knew no one was going to go faster so the last round was kind of a throw away. Asked about the final, the Tennessee finishing second to Xray’s Keven Herbert in last year’s Touring Car final, he said, ‘The car is easy to drive and I think it’s a pretty good race car so I’ll probably just leave it. I think the pace is ok.’ On racing and opportunities to make a pace he said, ‘Anything can happen but it will probably be pretty hard with the curbs and there is no where to tap out so it will be a little harder.’
Describing his first experience of a US carpet race as ‘unfinished business’ ask how qualifying rounded out for him, Urbain said, ‘For Q3 I kinda copied Sam’s set-up but it barely made any difference if I am honest same problem. For Q4 I made a radical change. I lost a wheel on the warm-up, prime time in front of everyone, go me, but the change felt better but the gap is still big 3, 4 seconds ish I am not even sure. It was slighty better but still not up there so maybe I go further in that direction. There is some more practice possible tonight or in the morning to figure it out and we’ll go from there in the main.’ Asked if he was battling for the final step on the podium the French National Champion said, ‘pretty much unless they tangle up front which can happen but other than that I have to settle for third because I can’t challenge on pure pace. It’s lacking grip and mostly steering. I want to understeer in slow speed and doesn’t rotate I have to go full lock everywhere, I can’t really let the car move around or dance. I cannot throttle it hard enough.’
Debuting Xray’s new X4’26 here this weekend and putting its durability to the test with a big off in the sweeper that ended his final qualifying attempt, Ratheisky said, ‘The track was very greasy and then I got charged from my team-mate Drew (Ellis) who seemed to have good traction so I tried to pull away but I hit the sweeper because I took a little bit to much risk and crashed unfortunately’. On his P4 on the grid, the German who also lines up P3 in the Jaco 21.5 Super Stock Touring Class, said, ‘Everyone wants to finish higher but actually I am OK with 4th, I am still testing with the new car on this car but I think I can go in attacking mode in the final. With traffic in his final two laps of Super Stock qualifying denying him the TQ, the former European Champion still topping the round but 0.17 of a second off Craig Xavier TQ time, he said his ‘car is great’ and he is confident for the Main.
View our event image gallery here.
