Anderson claims his first MonTech NYGP win

Having attended all five previous runnings of the MonTech New York Grand Prix, Awesomatix’s Kemp Anderson has finally added his name to the list of Champions of the annual flagship event of the 360V2 track in New Rochelle.  Pushed hard in the rocket round qualifying by NYGP organiser Donny Lia, the 22-year-old would emerge as the Top Qualifier of the AbsoluteHobbyz 1:12 Modified class ahead of Lia and Xray’s Keven Hebert.  With a single 8-minute to decide who would be the new Champion, the two 2023 World Championship finalists where in a class of their own quickly gapping the rest of the 10 car field with their world class level of driving.  With Lia all over the rear of his A12X, running slightly wide coming onto the straight was the only invitation Lia needed to go to the front just after the two & a half minute mark.  Such was the leaders pace however, they where quickly upon traffic with the leader finding himself with nowhere to go as a back-marker tried to recover from a crash.  Hitting the car and in turn hit from behind by Anderson, when everything settled it was the pole sitter that was back in front.  With a mistake from Lia giving Anderson breathing space and dropping the New Yorker down to third behind Hebert, Anderson would lap everyone up to second place.  With Lia getting back passed Hebert with a minute & a half left on the clock, the attention was then on the battle for third, fourth place qualifier Max Mächler getting passed Hebert with 5 laps to make it an all Awesomatix podium by 0.044 of a second.

Reacting to his first NYGP win, Kemp said, ‘The car was OK.  It started out pretty pushy and then came in kind of good.  Donny’s car was good at the start he was checking up behind me a lot but I caught a curb coming on to the straight so just lifted a little and let him by and then he go unluckily with some traffic and I was able to drive through – It was a chaotic Mod 1:12 Main as always.  There was at least like 6 or 7 times that a car was spun out in front of me that I had to go by or dodge so it was an intense 8-minutes.’  On his second place in the Speedzone Modified Touring Car class, the Tennessee driver said, ‘The car started off really good but Keven drove a perfect race and I couldn’t get past him.  I pushed again towards the end but there was no daylight so stuck in second.  He drove perfectly.’

Giving a run down of his final Lia said, ‘My car was really good in the final, the best that I have had it and I definitely had something for Kemp but somebody crashed in front of me and after I hit him really hard it peeled the tyre and moved my left rear hub so the axle was moving left & right so after that I ended up hitting a board, the car wasn’t right.  It’s unfortunate because that would have been a really good race with me and Kemp, it was going to be a good battle.’  Managing to get the win in the eXcelerate 13.5 1:12 class, Lia said, ‘13.5, I love that class, I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.  I don’t race Touring cars that why I run the Stock otherwise I’m running one class.  My 13.5 car was awesome.  It went a little flat early so I kind of slowed down a little bit figuring you save whatever you’ve got till the end cause that’s when I am going to need it so that’s what I did but then towards the end it got going again and it was alright so I don’t know if it just gave me a weird feeling or something, the track got really sticky, today the track is the highest it’s been so that might have been what I was feeling.’

As the organiser of the NYGP asked how he felt the 6th edition had gone Lia replied, ‘I’m really happy.  We had a problem, our regular announcer Tim Coporal couldn’t make it because of the hurricane down in Florida so it made it challenging ’cause time deals with scheduling and even down to printing out sponsor sheets so that hurt my experience as I had to try keeping everything going but it was great event and we plan to build it up even more next year now that everyone has seen the facility with having Red RC and Mod Media here.’

Asked if he was happy with Mod podium Mächler said, ‘Oh yeah, it was a crazy race.  I lost a bit of track after the first 2-minutes making small mistakes which put me back to 5th.  I had a good race with Josh (Cyrul), I don’t know what happened but he pulled off, and then I was on my own working my way through traffic I couldn’t even see Keven anymore.  In the last minute he showed up in front of me again.  His car was a bit out of shape so he gave me a fair chance coming onto the back straight, his car was a bit twitchy and I stick to the inside for the pass, good driver from him too to give me the space so thanks for that.  It was a great race to make the podium.’  In 1:12 Stock, the 1:12 Spec World Champion would have a tough race as he got crashed out my a backmarker and finished P5.

Summing up just missing the 1:12 podium ROAR National Champion Hebert said, ‘Wrong direction, the car was just hard to drive so I couldn’t really hold onto it, it was very loose.’  He continued, ‘Once Donny got into me then car was really really loose so I had no drive off the corner.  Unfortunately it was mainly the set-up change that went wrong and I couldn’t keep up.  I was running second for a while I just didn’t have the pace to challenge for the win.’  While it proved a challenging weekend in 1:12, it would be a perfect event for Hebert in the Speedzone Modified Touring Car class as he secured the TQ and the win.  While this year’s entry was effected by the upcoming IFMAR ISTC World Championships, the main saw an intense battle as second place qualifier Anderson threw everything at trying to find a way past the Canadian.  Reacting to his win, the RC America driver racing a version of Xray’s soon to be released T4’25, he said, ‘It was great, a really good run.  It was so close between me and Kemp throughout the whole qualifying and main and we just ran within 3 or 4/10th the whole race.  Qualifying matters so much on this race and luckily I was able to TQ and just do as really clean run and got the win.’

Class Winners Round Up

With a total of 9 class wins up for grabs at the MonTech NYGP, in the SnagRC 21.5 TC class it was IFMAR President Eric Anderson who took his Awesomatix to the TQ and win while in the Awesomatix USA FWD class Arvin Nano executed the perfect weekend also taking the win as the Top Qualifier.  With the TQ Wire Stock 1:12 win going to Larry Fairtrace, in the Gravity USGT the Xray of Shane Ownes took the win from Charles Bruno.  Frank Calandra Jr steered his CRC to the win in the SJT GT12R class while Canadian Pat St-Germain started from pole and took the Interstate Hobby 25.5 LMH win.

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