Anderson takes Q1 of Touring Car at NYGP

Having kicked off qualifying at the Montech New York Grand Prix with a TQ run in 1:12 Modified, Awesomatix’s Kemp Anderson concluded the first round with a TQ run in the Speedzone Modified Touring Car class.  With Sam Isaacs topping seeding at the 360v2 indoor carpet track, a mistake from the ROAR National Champion would allow Anderson to take the round by 1.6-seconds, the American duo having the edge on NYGP first time visitors Lucas Urbain and Jan Ratheisky, the two European’s having very different Stateside racing experience.  Despite a crash that cost him over one & half seconds & promote team-mate Ratheisky to fourth, Drew Ellis would complete the Top 5 for Xray. 

Summing up his TQ run, Anderson said, ‘The car is pretty good and I was just trying to run a consistent 5-minutes. I got lucky Sam tapped out towards the end and then I could just hold my line.’  On his car, he said, ‘the car felt great up front, I think I lost grip about half way through so we’ll see if we can work on set-up a little bit for the next one.’  Asked about switching back and forth between Touring Car and 1:12, he said, ‘It takes a couple of warm-up laps to adjust be usually it’s not too bad.’

Asked about his P2 for the round, Isaacs explained, ‘I clipped the corner and kind of spun out. The car was alright but I had to push it pretty hard to keep up with Kemp so we’ve got to think about changes to make to get more speed in the car. Asked what changes he had in mind, he said, ‘I think I need to get a little more turn in so we’ll look at that.’  On the track consistency, as the winner of the US Nationals in Touring Car here back in March, albeit on a different layout he said, ‘you loose a little bit in the tyres towards the end of the run but really the track is very consistent and you can run your hot lap anytime in the run.’

With the NYGP making his first time to ever race on US black carpet, on his P3 in Q1 Urbain said, ‘I pushed my way around the track with understeer. My stuff won’t turn and I don’t have enough grip especially compared to those guys (those guys being his team-mates Anderson and Isaacs).’  The new crowned French Champion continued, ‘that has been the story for the last day and a half so I still have to figure it out and adapt the car for me and what I want from it. These two obviously are very used to this and  know what they are doing and know what to expect and what they can and can’t get and work their way around it.’  Asked if he is running a similar set-up to the Americans he replied, ‘I would say it is not too far from what Kemp is driving. His set-up his based on what I run at ETS and I made the changes he made to adapt it to here and I am working my round it from there. It’s the same kind of philosophy but I need more time to get used to it. I need to maybe adapt my driving and also knowing what to expect and is possible to have and what I should give up on. It’s just a matter of connecting the dots step by step and figuring it out.’

Running in both Mod and Super Stock in Touring plus 1:12, on his P4 in Mod Touring Car, Ratheisky said, ‘It was pretty hard to drive because I made some big changes. We are using the new platform and it’s the first time for me on this carpet and traction and also I’m making the switch from outdoor to indoor so I am struggling a bit for knowledge of what to do. We made huge changes each run so as to learn and I think now I will go back to what I know was good in practice.’  Asked what the latest change had done to the car, ‘it made it pushy and then I had to force the car too much to go fast into the corner and it just steps out when you throttle too hard.’  On the new X4’26, only Ratheisky and Ellis are running the car here, the Slovakian manufacturer’s newest touring car kit not yet arrived in the US, the German said he and Ellis are working well together but he admits it is not the same as the big driver base they normally have at races.  A driver who has a wealth of US Touring Car racing including having attended the Snowbirds earlier this year, this is his first time to 360v2 and he’s a fan of the layout which he described as ‘technical and fast’ adding ‘and it’s forgivable which is great compared to US races from the past.  I love it and I really want to come back.’

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Anderson kicks off NYGP title defence with TQ run

Defending Montech NYGP 1:12 Modified Champion Kemp Anderson has opened the 7th edition of the New York based event with a TQ run, the Awesomatix driver fastest from team-mate Sam Isaacs and CRC’s Ollie Payne.  Having topped seeding in AbsoluteHobbyz 1:12 Modified class, the 23-year-old carried that form in to the first of the four scheduled qualifiers at the 360V2 track taking the 8-minute run by almost 3-seconds from Isaacs.  After a strong start, Payne dropped back finishing a further 2.3-seconds off the TQ pace.  Organiser of the NYGP, Donny Lia would get a fourth for the round despite the multiple World Championship finalist struggling to get his Awesomatix to his liking.  Excelerate’s Josh Cyrul and 1:12 Spec World Champion Max Mächler completed the Top 6, with the later having to be marshaled, which cost his almost 6-seconds on a track where Anderson’s fastest was an 8.415.

‘It’s feeling pretty good’, that was Anderson’s reaction after Q1.  He continued, ‘so it’s just small changes from here. My car has been pretty good since I got here. I made a couple of small changes, it was a little too aggressive at first so we backed it off a little and it’s now pretty good.’  For the second of today’s qualifiers, the World Championship Top Qualifier said he plans a little change explaining, ‘I think I need to go back the other way make it a little more aggressive. I got a solid run in so now it’s time to push.’  Asked about the track, he said, ‘it is very similar to last year, the left side is slightly different with the circle of curbs I think it was squarer last year but it’s very similar. I love it. I has got a bunch of fast speed stuff and then two 180s in the middle. It’s a good mixture.’

Winner of the ROAR Nationals which were held at 360V2 earlier this year, 1:12 Mod Champion Isaacs said his first qualifier, ‘was decent first run’ adding ‘the car is a little hard for me to drive so I’m not the most consistent with it right now but a decent run so I’ll take it.’   Asked what he needed to improve for Q2, the 31-year-old replied, ‘I just need to make it round the corners a little bit better and be a little bit smoother so I can push it harder right from the start instead of waiting a minute or two in.’  A late withdrawal from last year’s NYGP as the then defending champion, as the difference between the National layout and the 2025 NYGP layout, he said, ‘I think both layouts are great, the way Donny does the curbing and the coloured infield, it looks beautiful, but I think this layout is maybe a little more difficult than the Nationals, the lap times are little slower, but another great layout from Donny and his crew for sure.’

Making a return to the event, his last visit to New Rochelle being in 2022, Payne summed up his Q1 with, ‘it wasn’t too bad, the car started off pretty well but it developed a push pretty early on, too early on for this level of grip so I ended up over working the tyre a little too much so for the last 2-minutes I had not tyre left to compete so I just had to settle for where I was.’  The reigning 1:12 Spec European Champion, on the track layout, ‘it flows quite nicely but it’s a little more open to what we are used to in Europe. The grip is high but I can’t really comment because I think it has been higher here before but obviously for me it’s a lot harder to what I am used to.’  Having spent much of yesterday’s free practice day working on his 13.5 car for the Excelerate RC Super Stock class, the 26-year-old has only got 2 or 3 runs with the Modified car saying, ‘there is still a lot of changes to make in Modified to get it to where it needs to be.’

Asked how he felt his opening run went, Lia replied, ‘I am struggling with the car.  I have tried three different cars, destroyed one car, so I think it was a decent run.’  He continued, ‘I’m struggling with drivability and grip.  Right now I am just disconnected from the car and no matter which car I tried, and different set-ups, different tyres, it feels disconnected.  We are getting close but it’s still not great. We just haven’t found what we need, I don’t now why or what it is but we’re working on it.’

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Anderson confirmed to defend MonTech NYGP title

Having finally added his name to the MonTech New York Grand Prix‘s list of Champions last year, Kemp Anderson has been confirmed as heading the entry at the seventh running of the event at 360v2 RC from October 16-19th.  The 2023 1:12 World Championship podium finisher took his Awesomatix to the both the NYGP TQ and win in 1:12 Modified beating Donny Lia and Max Machler.  With the New Rochelle located track just a 20-minute train ride from the centre of the City That Never Sleeps, this year’s entry also includes Awesomatix’s French Touring Car ace Lucas Urbain, reigning 1:12 Spec World Champion Max Mächler from Germany, CRC’s reigning European 1:12 Spec Champion & British National Champion Ollie Payne, Xray’s Jan Ratheisky, and 2025 ROAR 1:12 and Touring Car National Champion Sam Isaacs.

Source: Fordham 360 Hobbies & Raceway [Facebook]