Category Archives: Drifting

Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia: Race Day Part 3

The damage the S13 sustained was alot more serious than it appeared to be. Due to using aftermarket front lower arms and rear A arms, the impact to the wall had caused the front and rear subframe to shift! The tie rods were badly bent and the front knuckle wasn’t spared either. Being so late in the evening, it was impossible to get them replaced so with the help from the boys from Tek Ming Tyres, we basically had to try knocking everything back into place with a hammer and a welding torch.

It was almost 1am when we got everything done to best we could. The car steered straight but the steering would not return to center. I figured this was alright as long as I remember to manually counter steering whenever drifting. Besides  it was so late into the evening and having hardly any sleep the past 2 nights, I couldn’t think straight 😛

I was eager to start the next morning’s pre-competition practice as I was curious on how the car handled.

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Not wanting to risk anything, I insisted for Miki (Ryuji) to lead during our first run. Drifting with a ‘dead’ steering takes a bit of getting used to. It was not  too dificult  have to counter steer manually when both hands are on the wheel but it proved to be a handful (pun intended) when only using one hand when the other is on the handbrake. Having to turn almost one and a half rotations, I had developed the trucker’s style of steering while drifting.img_75

After a few runs , I was beginning to get the hang of it and even considered a career in driving trucks…the effect of the lack of sleep was definitely hitting me at that time

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Soon it came to my turn to go against Rhenadi in the best 32. We both lined up at the start and off we went. Going in at full throttle thru the gears I had noticed something was amiss; the car felt way under powered. It was too late to do anything now so  I had just floor it and clutch kick my way thru the corner. The run was decent enough but I knew I should have done better. Upon reaching the start line, I shouted for the crew to check on the car , then only did my crew realised that they had forgotten to turn the Nitrous bottle open!! To put the effect of this into perspective; My car without the aid of nitrous was pushing about 330WHP, with the 50hp shot of nitrous it had 370WHP. With the nitrous switch turned on but with the bottle shut, it makes the engine run at a very rich fuel mixture with retarded inginition timing, and I was only pushing in the mid region of 2ooWHP. Man, was I pissed. All those sleepless nights , all those times  at the alignment shop seemed wasted because of this silly mistake. We should have taken a five-minute break for me to regain my composure, but I immediately went for the 2nd run. I had given Rhenadi a car’s length distance at the start and followed him into the initiation point. Rhenadi had intiated while i followed suit. As we approached the wall, Rhenadi looked as if he was about to lose it and had slowed the car considerably to gain control of the car. I was forced to slow down which had caused me to straighten. Rhenadi somehow managed to gain control and continued drifting with a clutch kick which I too had attempted to do. However, to my horror , I had forgotten to perform the manual countersteer as the car spun which the wheels were lock into position!!!  I went on for a few meters and did a clutch kick again  and the same thing happend!!!

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It was then I knew my Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia campaign was over. Frustrated, I just drove back to the pit .

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It was tough to put on a cheerful face on camera after that incident but I know I had to do it

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Explaining to Rhenadi’s parents on what had happened during our run

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The spectators were all supportive.  I really felt I let them down that day

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Having been knocked out so early in the round gave me the opportunity to check out the competition first hand..

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It was good to be able to meet all the fans as we all stayed back long after the event was over, signing our poster and cards. I guess I found it  therapeutic as I felt a lot better after. However it was good I went through what I did as it prepared me for  2010  proved which is about to be  most disastrous year yetdsc03534

Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia Part 2: Qualifying

Oh god!! has it already been that long??? Well as promised heres the rest of the coverage of FD Malaysia 2009 ,which I thought was my worse FD yet ( This year’s Singapore FD  tops it , hands down!!)

DAY 2

We all got to the track early the next day. It was a good thing that the replacement throttle had arrived as today is the offical practice followed by the qualifying session

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Ming and Cheng inspecting the replacement throttle we got early that morning

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1st practice had everyone in a joyous mood

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everyone is raring to goimg_8793

smiles all around..dsc00969

except for me…:Pdsc00998

Finally we got the car together and I was excited to test the car without its gremlins..dsc01035

everyone was doing well

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The first casualty of the daydsc01113dsc01466

My practice time was cut short due to a leak in my manifold..img_8777

Everyone waited patiently for the judges to arrive for the 2nd drivers briefing. Djan took the opportunity to do a few facial excersise while doing so

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Mad Mike’s immaculate RX7 img_8872

Another beautiful ride belonging to one of the Hong Kong drifter

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Pop of Thailand pulled out a few beautiful runs during practice

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Jane was consistent all day

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I was getting use to the car’s handling and but the manifold started to leak again and I was losing power so i had to stop my practice mid way

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Mad Mike was virtually rubbing his rear bumper on the wall all dayimg_9301

Cheng fixing the leak once again.

As predicted it rained

img_9315Yoong did a good run

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So did Meryvnimg_9367

Unfortunately, nerves got the better of Jane. She straighten on her first run and spun on her second inspite of doing so well during practice

img_9504I managed a good run and was placed third at the 1st round of qualifying. Till Djan knock everyone down a spot to claim first place on the second run. I wanted to better my first run and had attempted to rub the wall with my rear bumper…

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Instead I bent everything on the carimg_9657

Well I was off to the workshop and try get everything fixed …

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Apparently I missed the annoucements and the post qualfying interview but I had Jane to represent me so it was ok..

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Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia Part 1: Setup 18th Dec 2009

A month after Thailand, it was now Malaysia’s turn to host the Formula Drift series.  Held at Malaysian Agro Exposition Park Serdang,this two day event had a record number of  54 drifters competing with  Thailand being the  biggest foreign contingent of 12 drifters, followed by three from Hong Kong , two from Indonesia and with New Zealand ,Singapore, Philippines and Japan with one each. As Goodyear is  the title sponsor, it is not surprising that this international field were  mainly made up of Goodyear drifters, each representing their respective region around  SEA  .One could only  imagine the amount of work it took logistically to cater to  these drivers, crews and their machinery .All these  is  credited to the dynamic management of  Goodyear Malaysia most notebly  Brenda, Puay Ling and  Sham whom all worked around the clock to ensure everything was picture perfect ,which in turn  played the major role in making  the  Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia the best Formula Drift Asia event to date!

All drivers and teams were required to report in at the eve of the event as this is when  the final tech inspections are held and  a drivers briefing was also shedueled   A media conference and a photo session scheduled  for all the Goodyear drivers earlier that day too…

img_8505 We were asked to have our face powered for the photoshoot but Thailand’s Nakaorn wanted the whole works to be done on himself….the cherry flavoured lipstick being applied was his own btw.

dsc003351 After that he wanted his eyebrows trimmed..holding up the line , some of us were not amused!

dsc00343 Michael Gan revealed that makeup experience was akin to being on the dentist chair . Watch how his toes curl as he cringe .

For the record; I didnt have any makeup  done partly due to not having enough time which I  got Nakorn to thank for:P

dsc003491 Everyone’s amazed at what a little eye makeup could make the colors of Johan’s eyes come out img_8529

Mad Mike shows us  how they  handle sheep over there….dsc00401

….as Jane finds our sniggering a bit distracting img_8515

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L-R En Nasution Abdul Rahman (MD of  Goodyear Malaysia) Richard Fleming( MD of Goodyear ASEAN & Thailand) , Harvey Davis (VP EPSN Star Sports Management) and Marcus Lim (MD Formula Drift Asia)

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Me, Cheaka,Yoong, Johan , Michael, Mike and Miki

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Miki’s translator ( green t shirt) is a ‘Penang kia’ dude called Ken

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Later that day ,the first driver’s briefing was held . This is where we got to meet the judges and find out what they are expecting from us for qualifying the next day.

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Daijaro says ” Hi, I’m Daijaro.I’m the speed judge.So that means I will be judging your speed”

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 Myth #1; Laughing at the judge’s jokes will earn you extra points during qualifying

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 Ryan Sage, the co founder of Formula Drift was roped in as the Angle judge for this round

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Andy Yen, was the Line judge

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Part of the requirements of the Tech inspection is to have the competing cars stickered up with  door sticker numbers  and windscreen banners

img_8694 Ivan lim shows off his new impact bar…pretty little petite thing , don’t you think?

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Tina helping out with Jane’s banner..

It was actually a  mad rush for us to get our cars prepared for this event as our cars were held up  during its shipment from Thailand. Cheaka and I had suffered some body damage and those had to be tendeded to and I had a few up grades that I wanted done to the car. So, it was a hectic rush we had to go through getting the cars from the body and paint shop and off to  the workshop . They  had only got done installing and tuning the car on Wednesday and I only had the chance to test the car on the following day. It was only then we had realised that the car had a few gremlins that needed to be iron out, most notably  a sticky throttle which isn’t such a good thing to have especially when you will be drifting surrounded by concrete barrier. dsc00711

I only got a couple of rounds of testing before deciding to get the problem fixed as it was too dangerous to continue

dsc00720 Ivan Lim managed a number of solid runs with his s13

dsc00848 My tempt crew for the event, Lok and Cheng trying to fix the culprit… dsc00920 A lot of cutting a grinding was involved. After thinking it was fixed , it was back to the drift practice area for testing then back to the pit area when the problem arises again. This carried on for numerous of times…dsc00924 and the  problem had gotten worse as the throttle would get stuck at the wide open position..Tonnka’s Larry , far right ( who is one of my sponsor) was there to lend a helping hand. dsc00910 We stayed up till 3am testing and trying to fix the problem that night. Until finally we decided to call it quits and see if  we could find a replacement the next day…

Digi Yellow Army Graduation Party@ Shah Alam 22nd November 2009

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Cheaka and I were invited to  give  drift taxi rides during the Digi Yellow Army Graduation Party at its Shah Alam Headquarters. Honestly , this was the first time I’ve heard of such an event and images of overweight people in yellow spandex suits sprung into mind. However, we were relieved that the people we had to taxi were normal size and thankfully so as we only had our underpowered AE86s to use as our main drift cars were still stuck in customs coming back from  Thailand :p

Anyway, the drifting was done its ‘other’ car park away from the main building where the other activities were held. Cheaka left me for a while to do a motivational speech to the graduates.

We got done almost at seven and was just in time to watch Hannah Tan give out autographs and Man Bai’s performance…

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Cheng insisting they all wear their helmets during the ride..

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Yes ..ladies n gentlemen, the person in the brown hat is none other than Malaysian superstar drifter Ivan Lau who was part of my support crew that day..Ivan insisted I used the chain ring fence as my rear clipping point during the taxi ride to make it more ‘exciting’…yeah right

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err..I think she was one of the speakersdsc04125

This is either someone’s father or another speaker…

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Jane’s motivational speech..I suspect this is the part where she digs into the audience’s guilt or something cause they all look as if…

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This is as close as i got to Hannah

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Nevertheless , everyone had a good time that day

Formula Drift Thailand :7th-8th November 2009

Held at Bangkok’s  Wonderworld Park, the inaugural, Goodyear Formula Drift Thailand , was a roaring success , attracting   over 7000 spectators during the two day event. This newly built international standard drift track had New Zealand’s Mad Mike and Japan’s Miki Ryuji  joining the ranks of an international field  made up of Thais, Malaysians ,Singaporeans , Indonesians and a Filipino. The final result had Mad Mike in first , Miki in second and Djan in third.

I personally love going to Thailand. Cheaka and I have business associates there and we are practically there every year. The people there are extremely friendly and  polite. The Thais drifters  are also no exception. They  had   impressed me  since the hay days  of the Malaysian D1 Gran Prix  series where we played host to close to a dozen Thai drifters during the final round in Shah Alam. Their drift cars ,set up and equipments were years ahead of us and as expected so were the Thai drift cars that we saw this year. The Thais are really into the sport and take competition very seriously; almost to the point of being mistaken to be unfriendly . Their  handwork and dedication to the sport  extends to  long hours of practice they put into during this  competition , even dragging into the wee hours of the morning at the Wonderworld track!!

The results of the Malaysian teams were not as impressive as the last round  in Singapore, with the exception of  Tengku Djan who got 3rd overall.  Michael Gan ( top 32) and Me (top 16) only managed to go so far with Johan and Jane obtaining damages on their cars thus failing to qualify. The  Bridgestone Malaysia team had Ivan (top 32) and Tat Wei ( top 16) suffered the same fate as us. It was apparent that  the lack of horsepower was the main citeria of our poor performance. With the exception of  Tengku Djan and Michael Gan, all of us were running a sub 330 BHP  cars. Though sufficient  for courses in Malaysia and Singapore, more power is needed for a course such as this . It was basically  a short straight that leads to a wide long corner ,where we were required to be hug the the wall  throughout the entry and also a huge portion of the first corner. The ideal technique  is to intiate the drift via handbraking all to the first  rear clipping zone . Power is needed to gain enough velocity on such a short straight which then  allows the momentum to slide the car  all the way to the rear wall!  Rest assured , we will be back next time with more fire power!! 🙂

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Upon arrival at the airport on Wednesday…

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After wandering aimlessly in the airport, we finally managed to locate our transport . The driver was a friendly bloke with a terrible sense of direction…he once got us lost going to the event place and took almost 3 hours when it was suppose to be a 45min journey . Johan seen here giving a two thumbs rating  for the massage chair in the van while Micheal Gan  recovers from the experience..

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We arrived at the Pullman King Power  hotel and met up with Marcus and the Binter crew on the way out to the track. Seen here Micheal Gan is still recovering dscn36891

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Since we were free that day we decided to tag along with Ivan Lim and Phope and check out Mike Whiddet who had gearbox issues at that time

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Phope telling us a typical Thai joke…

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It took a while for the Kiwis to get it though …(L-R)Darren, Mike, Mr Cook  and Mr Whiddet

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We were told that there was a Drift Kart joint nearby , so we decided to check it out!

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Never realised before but; I wonder why the person running the place decided to rest his neck on my thumb… ???dscn37381

Getting the Kart sideways was almost as fun as the real thing..

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That night Phope took us out to check out some local grub…spicy

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We went through  such an ordeal while shipping our car out of Malaysia that we so glad to see the car arriving in one piece in Thailanddscn37641

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Registration…

dscn38151A few of Thailand’s drift monsters …..

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Philipine’s David Feliciano’s drift car decked out in cool Rota rims

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A few of the 50 race queens Goodyear had hired for the event …

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Rumour has it that there are two males in this photo….I think Pop doesnt know it ( then again , maybe he does:))dscn3894

The results of getting a bit too close to the rear wall ……dscn3891

I’m not trying to look cool here  but just trying  decide where to put my hands…

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Eh…where’s Cheaka’s left hand is at????!!

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Micheal Gan polishing his photo taking skills

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Johan dreaming of having a massage chair of his own…

dscn3911Maxxis’s Tumz and his girlfriend who will be competiting in the Malaysian Formula Drift.dscn3995

Drivers briefing

Thats all the photos I have as from then onwards we were to busy drifting …..

Competing in Thailand was a total new experience that proved to be valuable to us. From logistic wise, equipment to  team management , everything was put to a straining test where all its  flaws and weaknesses were apparent  .All these however have been noted and  necessary changes have been   made  alas  we are glad to say that we will be more prepared the next time around.