Due to the clashing of dates, Jane and I was forced to miss  two rounds  of the  Stardifts challenge series . Being a 3 round series, we made it a point to not miss this final round. We were totally drained from the Singapore event the week before, with  Jane was recovering from a flu while I was showing early signs of ,contracting it from her 😛 . However , we soon found out that the state of our health were not the only hurdle that we will be experiencing that weekend!

DAY 1:Practice

We arrived at the venue early Saturday morning only to find that the  trailer transporting our car  was late .So we promptly set our pit up and just basically hung out till  almost mid afternoon when it finally   arrived  .

The course was set up similar to the last round  which gives an advantage to those who attended it but nevertheless we got around familiarizing it quickly. I had noticed that my runs were other plague with shifting gremlins. On almost every run, I had trouble either up shifting or down shifting. Being intermittent and not happening   on a specific gear , this problem was initially  thought to be a clutch problem which had Leong adjusting it almost after every run. This carried on to the point that I wasn’t able to shift and I knew that it was the gearbox instead

My practice runs were plague by shifting issue; either when shifting up or down.

Jane runs were good but lack consistency.

Jenshen was enjoying his newly acquire power from his freshly transplanted 4agze supercharged engine as he was able to do quiet a few good runs

.

. Our fears was confirmed when we found metal fillings in our transmission oil when we drained it.

So a quick call to our friend Joe Han of Drift House had him locating one gearbox for us but delivery could only be made later in the evening.

(L-R) Jenshen, Leong and Man; Waiting for the parts to arrive.Leong seen here  in his element :p

Soon after Jane also had to put her practice to a halt as a faulty alternator was causing her fuses in her car to blow.

Late evening ,and we are still waiting. Jane seen here feeling the effect of her flu

Due to the lack of lightings , the place almost  pitch black at night so ,the oil  from the broken transmission was used to fuel the lamps we made ...

which gave decent lighting…don’t you think?

Jane’s car waiting for her alternator transplant..

so’s mine

Our ever so resourceful and multitasking  Kevin from www.mycarslowbai.com seen here lending a hand with the jack while having dinner

The wonderful people from Tampin who came  over with much needed lighting and also  to assist  with the gearbox transplant which DriftHouse’s Joe Han had just delivered.

Things got finally done by 11pm . As it was  dark , I only manage a couple of straight line runs to test the gearbox. We soon packed up and called it a day.

DAY 2 :Competition

We got to the track early the very next day and got around practicing..

The ‘new’ gearbox worked perfectly and I managed to get a few solid practice runs

Jane was also drifting without any mechanical problems too

Pre qualifying briefing…seen here , Ivan Lau (pony tail, in white), feeling the effects of the night before’s “Party Like a Rockstar” sesssion in the neighbouring state  🙂

Qualifying was a straight forward affair. I only  managed to get in, middle of the pack, which I was a bit disappointed  with but after what we had gone through I should count my blessings. Jane , however once again narrowly missed top 16 again!!! She shared the same points as the 16th qualifier (Goodyear’s Michael Gan) but her lower second run points gave the advantage to him.Anyway with her flu and all I think she did a terrific job. Jenshen rocked during practice but qualifying jitters rob him of a good run.Lack of experience is the main culprit which will be easily solved given time

TOP 16

Top 16 run was against Mr K from Seremban. I have never gone against him but based on my observations, on his performance in past competitions and also on ones that I had judged, I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.Our runs were really aggressive. While I was leading,there were bit more  of body contact than what I am comfortable with .So I made sure I  ‘performed’ just as well when it was my turn to follow 🙂  The judges voted in my favour

TOP 8

Going against Tengku Djan is something I’ve always dreaded. I have only gone against him twice , with the last  during  Formula Drift Singapore ,which he dropped me faster than a bad habit 🙂 Determined to  put up a fight,we  managed to go through two ‘one more times’

Some how I managed to narrowly win from Djan and advance to top 4

Top 4

To my horror, we ran out of tires!!! My run is coming up next and the only decent pair of tires left was Jane’s used tires that was on her car. I knew it wasn’t enough to go to the finals with but  getting through Top 4 was our 1st priority at the moment 🙂 .

My run with privateer Along Rempit had to go through a  ‘One more time’ which  resulted  a win a to him.

Due to a single point difference in my qualifying score the final place on the podium was awarded to Vincent’ terbalik’ Lim. with me in forth

Sharing my 4th placed ‘shower’ with organiser Ngan..

I was happy that  we made it this far as a team ,even with all the odds going against us ,but one thing I was really happy about was , my buddy Ivan Lau winning this round thus grabbing the championship for this year. Ivan had a string of bad luck throughout the year and badly needed a boost of confidence. This win certainly helped as Ivan is back to his over confident cocky self !!! 🙂

Of course my thanks also goes to the Tampin locals who were there when we needed them. I hope to give you guys more taxi rides in the future!!