Isaacs to defend TC title from TQ in New York
Sam Isaacs will defend his MonTech NYGP Touring Car title from pole position after the Awesomatix driver completed a clean sweep of qualifying at 360v2 RC Raceway in New York. The Maryland racer concluded qualifying with the fastest time of the weekend in the fourth & final qualifier leading home team-mate Kemp Anderson by 3.80 seconds. For Anderson the final qualifier would not be his fastest instead his time from Q3 securing him second on the grid for the 8th edition of the event, the Tennessee driver having attend every running of the annual NYGP. While Keven Hebert would better his time in Q4, he couldn’t better his starting position and the factory Xray driver lines up P3 ahead of the similar car of fellow Canadian Bryce Frechette. Drew Ellis competes the Top 5 on the grid, the Xray US Team Manager improving his time by 1.5-second in the final qualifier.
Having felt his Q3 run had room for improvement in terms of his own driving, after Q4 Isaacs said, ‘That was a better run, much cleaner and the car had good speed. I just tried to keep it on all fours and drive well, that was a pretty solid one I think.’ For tomorrow’s final, the 32-year-old said, ‘I don’t think I will change the car a whole lot. I’ll just try to drive clean in the main, maybe run in a new set of tyre and just go from there.’ He added, ‘I expect the track will be about the same tomorrow.’
Asked about his concluding qualifying run, Anderson said, ‘I was a couple of tenths off my fastest one overall. My car was a little bit pushy in the last one. I think maybe the track lost a little bit of grip too but the car was really easy to drive, it’s a good racing car so we’ll see how the main goes.’ Asked if he was noticing a different between the morning and the afternoon runs, the 24-year-old replied, ‘yeah, but I think the track should be good tomorrow.’ Asked about challenging his team-mate in the final, he said, ‘Anything can happen in the main but I think he has got a little more speed than me and Keven do. It should be really close between me and Keven and be a fun race.’
‘The car just pushed too much’, was Hebert’s thoughts on Q4. He continued, ‘I drove a perfect race, probably the most consistent I have ever driven but just no pace to be running up front. Definitely need to find more steering, the car is easy to drive just not fast enough.’ On changing his car set-up for the final, the 2024 NYGP Champion said, ‘I will take a gamble because I’ve got really nothing to lose, I have a pretty big gap to fill and starting from 3rd I will just try something pretty big and see how it works out.’ He concluded, ‘in the main I mean everything can happen so we’ll try to get up to speed and then hope for the best.’