Payne ups pace at NYGP with Q3 TQ run
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.’