Category Archives: Drifting

RacePod Drift Challenge Series Rd1 @ Dato’ Sagor Circuit 7th & 8th Jan 2012

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Photos by David Soo

Known to be one of Malaysia’s  best track to drift on , Federation D had chosen Dato’ Sagor circuit to be the venue for round 1 of their RacePod Drift Challenge Series. With it’s fast entries, followed by an equally fast sweeping corner, this track has proven to be on of the most challenging track around. Due to its higher speed, this track is also known to eat up tires. I was as first reluctant to enter the competition as I had only 2 pairs of  new Kumho tyres left  and knew the other used pairs won’t last very long in these conditions . However upon hearing Federation D’s offer to subsidize the trailer fees for all the competitors , I had decided to bring J4M8U  for practice ,as I had a fair amount of 17″ tyres, and will use SLOW for the qualifying and competition!

We were also excited for this competition as our student and friend, Francis  will also joining us with his “Cockroach” A31. This will be the first time for Francis to be competiting in a drift competition .

Things were perfect at the beginning of the day where Jane and I managed to do a few good run until disaster struck;

While avoiding a spun car in front, the car behind me ,which was quiet a distant away, ran straight into me! A broken intercooler, damaged radiator and a broken fan and shroud ended J4m8u’s day thus ending my practice.  I was totally devastated as this ruined my chances of practice and was even considering packing up and leave. However I had decided against it  and  nursed whatever used tires I had for SLOW and did a fair abit of runs on bald tires!! Going fast nowhere would best describe my runs

Day2

The next day I managed to squeeze a few more practice runs on the used tires before turning to the new ones for qualifying and competition. The new tires really had massive grip!!! So much so that I totally screwed my pre-qualifying and 1st qualifying run!! I had one more run to go and gave it everything and managed to place 3rd in qualifying.

Jane did excellently throughout the weekend but  had gearbox issues where the gear kept popping during her first run but managed to do a good run for her second attempt. However it was deemed not good enough for best 16 .

Francis improved tremendously as the weekend progressed and managed to drift the whole course . However he too missed the cut but I am sure it will just be a matter of time before he does!

The tandem runs were fairly straight forward but I was knocked out at the 2nd stage, when I fumbled at the last corner , by Mr Rocker Loh who drifter superbly tat day!!

We would like to thank everyone for supporting  us,especially  H for the tent, Mike and Cheryl for the videos and taking care of Johanna, Jeevan for fixing my drive shaft boot and the GanuDrift guys for towing J4M8U to the trailer 🙂

 

Results

5th placing ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD  Team Sync Optima Tayaria Kumho

DNQ       AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH Team Sync Optima

DNQ      FRANCIS B FERNANDES  Team Cockroach

 

 

Team Drift Battle Royale @ SpeedCity 31st Dec 2011

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There was no other better way than spending our New Year’s eve than competiting in the Team Drift Battle Royale competition. Yoong, Jane and I took on 8 other teams to win this final drift competition 0f 2011!

Photos by Klemann Javier

It was great to end the year with a high note and also to celebrate my first win with my new tyre sponsor Kumho!!

 RESULTS

1st Team DBSG ( Yoong , Jane and Ariff)

2nd Razor Edge

3rd Prince Assassin

Synco Optima’s Drift X session @ Sepang Internation Circuit P1 3rd Dec 2011

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Photos from ZakuMalaya

 

About 18 drift cars turned up for  the  Drift X session which was pretty decent considering the announcement was made only a week and a bit prior to it. Sepang International Circuit at the eleventh hour had decided to allocate the P1 parking space for drifting in conjunction  with their 1000km Endurance Race

 

The session was divided to  a wet and dry surface which was alternated throughout the day. This had enable the lesser powered cars to drift the challenging yet fun course layout

 

There were a few drifter , which included Jane and yours truly, who took the oppurtiunity to test their cars prior to the Formula Drift Malaysia event to be held soon after!

Stay tune for more up coming events!!

Cool video by ZakuMalaya

 

Ace Drift Challenge Final:22-23 Oct 2011 The Last Tango

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It was a tall order for to retain the Championship Title I held for this year. I was currently running 5th and I had to win this round while the other top 3 drifters had to not go past top 16 inorder for me to win for this year. I actually knew since round 2 that I had to forgo this year’s titles fight but I really wanted to win , at least podium for this final round!

 

The first day of practice went great. SLOW handled like a dream with the subtle setup changes I’ve made. Jane performed equally as well as she is getting more and more confident with her car .

 

 

It  was towards the end of the session I was struggling to lock up the rear wheel with the handbrake but it wasn’t a major cause of  concern  as Kian and Boy are scheduled to arrive the next day and it would be a simple fix..so I thought.

Day 2

We arrived at the track bright and early.Kian and boy were already there and soon set off fixing the frail handbrake. Apparently the problem was a lot more serious as one of the pistons on the caliper had somehow corroded and had badly damaged the lining of the caliper cylinder causing it to stick.Kian tried his best fixing it and told me to go out for practice and hope it would loosen .It didnt. To make matter worse I broke the drive shaft on my 6th practice lap.So it was a a mad rush to get the replacement shaft and some how Kian and boy managed to get the car up and running for the last official practice where  I  only managed 5 consecutive unsuccessful runs before it was time to qualify!!

I opt to run first and somehow managed a 3rd overall with Jane bagging 9th!!!

From there onwards things got worse as I managed to go through best 16 cleanly without and need of the handbrake.

but when my opponent slowerd down considerably at the top 8 battle it had me plowing towards him , ending my campaign for the day.

Luck also had it  that Jane broke her gearbox on her very first tandem run!!Oh well .

RESULTS

5th Place ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD  Sync Optima

10th Place AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH Sync Optima

 

This event also marks the end of our contract with Goodyear. Due to the economical climate, the new management team felt that  it wasn’t viable to keep us  on board .This is understandably so,  however ,after being in the team for 2 years ,it would had  been nice if the news of us being dropped were conveyed in other ways but I guess a single sentence on a email would suffice. LOL.
Anyway it has been a wonderful 2 year working relationship that we had and we are proud to say we were able to build the team to be come the number 1 drift team in Malaysia!

Stay tune for updates on our new sponsors!!

 

What did you do last Saturday night?

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Jane and I could have sworn we were somewhere but it seems we weren’t…  Hahahahaha

Anyways..J4M8u had its rear wheel rubbing against the fender, causing the car to spin whenever I pitch the car beyond a certain angle..Hellaflush can be HellaDumb at times!!

 

Jane improved by leaps and bound with her drifting. She has plans for her  Blackie to undergo some upgrades soon!! So both of our missles will have some work done to them !

 

 

By the way “We Love Taiwan too ”