Defending NYGP Champion Isaacs opens with TQ Touring Car run

Defending MonTech New York Grand Prix Champion Sam Isaacs has opened Touring Car qualifying with a TQ run at the 8th edition of 360v2 RC Raceway’s signature event.  The Awesomatix driver would set the pace ahead of 2024 Champion Keven Hebert, the Xray driver finding himself in the 3rd of the Gravity RC Modified Touring Car class heats having missed last year’s event.  With both drivers setting identical fastest lap times of 10.99 seconds, at the end of the 5-minutes 7/10th of a second separated the times of the Top 2.  A driver who has raced every running of Donny Lia’s NYGP, Kemp Anderson completed the Top 3 1.9-seconds off his Awesomatix team-mate’s TQ time.

Isaacs summed up his TQ run with, ‘that was a pretty good run.’  He continued, ‘I had one small mistake did cost me too much time so I will try to clean it up for the next one and see if I can go faster.’  On what he has been doing in terms of his car set-up he explained, ‘It needs something but with the conditions here it’s tough to find a good balance between having enough steering and also keeping it drivable.  And everyone is so close, I think it just really comes down to driving well.’

After his unfortunate take out in the opening Mod 1:12 qualifier, on his first Touring Car attempt, Hebert said, ‘It went well but it was hard to pace myself because I was by myself in the bottom heat but the car is running really good and I drove a really clean run, I just didn’t know if I needed to push or not so half a second off Sam’s TQ so it was close but for the next one we get to fight together.  On changes the second of the day’s scheduled two qualifiers, he said, ‘I need a little more high speed steering so I will add a little more droop to the car but that’s all I am going ti change cause the car is very close.  I just got to get a good clean run in.

Giving a run down on his Q1 run to the third fastest time, Anderson said, ‘The car was definitely better than it was in practice this morning and yesterday so finding some speed and we just got to make a small adjustment for the next one. Asked what the big improvement was from practice, the Tennessee driver said, ‘overall we just found more grip in the car.’  On his pace compare to the two ahead of him, Anderson said, ‘I think I was 1.8 seconds behind Sam. I had a really consistent run which I think was almost a 99.5% so I can get much more consistent than that so we just got to find more speed in the car now.’