Conemasters International Gymkhana Challenge Round 2 @ Sepang International Circuit 22 July 2012

Photo by Noelle Yg

After winning the RWD category  the  first round of Conemasters International Gymkhana Challenge, I was  obviously eager to defend  my title for this second round. Word got out to Jane that I had so much fun during the first round that she decide to join this round too.

 

Upon hearing this, organiser extraordinaire, Ben Loh decided to  spice things up putting out a poster with both Jane and I on it with the caption ” Will Hubby Let Wifey Take The Win?”

Well everyone knows the answer to that, after all they don’t call me the “Boss” for nothing!

photo by Vaux RS

Jokes aside; the weather that day was wetter than an otters pocket, which was perfect as I ironically do better  in the wet than in the dry.

One thing I like about  how Conemasters operates was  ;We were given multiple timed runs within an allocated time for our category, which was unique for autocross/gymkhana events here. However despite posting the best time, I was relentless in improving my time as I was going against the best RWD competitor in Malaysia. With the likes of Mickey, Chris, Hafiz and Vijay, I knew that my time could easily be toppled at any given moment and had to continue to strive for the best time I could muster.

Jane with her drift set up competition car was struggling to get grip throughout the course. Though not being able to post a good time , her runs were spectacular to say the least.

Photo by Noelle Yg

The weather soon cleared up and it was soon scorching hot and it became more of a nail biting experience for me as my other competitors time were beginning to improve thus inching their way into the time I had set.

Photo by Noelle Yg

To my relief,  I clinched the  fastest RWD title for the 2nd consecutive time by the skin of my teeth  from  Mickey Teoh!

 

Well all I have to say Conemasters rocks!! From the swags to the pit girls to everything , it just rocks..Bring on round 3 Ben!!!

 

 RESULTS

RWD Category

1st Place ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD Team Sync Optima

2nd Place MICKEY TEOH

3rd Place CHRIS CHONG

Most Spectacular Award

AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH Team Sync Optima

GRA round 2 @ Bukit Jalil Stadium Car Park B 17th June 2012

Photo by Pohkinz Chu

Like   Formula 1 to racing or D1 Gran Prix  to drifting ,Ian Khong’s GRA events has been long regarded as the pinnacle of Autocross/Gymkhana event in Malaysia. Paving the way since 2005, GRA had set the standard in this  genre of motorsport with their state of the art timing devices and their real time wi-fi broadcasting time sheets to their professional crew, officials and challenging course set up.

photo by Extreme Fotowerkz

I am proud to say  that Jane and I was introduced to autocrossing/gymkhana when we joined our first GRA event in 2009 and though it was humbling experience, to me to at least, we were hooked!

Photo by Pohkinz Chu

The following years our involvement in the sport  dwindle due to clashing of dates of drift events/competitions  and only now we were able to find time to participate.

Photo by Pohkinz Chu

Round 2 of the GRA 2012 series was held at Bukit Jalil Stadium car park, known for its sandy surface we both knew that gaining  traction was essential to clock a good time for this course.

Ian had created  a fairly huge course for this round which made full use of  the whole of car park B space so it was obvious  speed  woulds also plays an important role which will amount to nothing if the rear tires does not hook up.

Our  category was scheduled to begin at mid day which was fortunate as this  gave us ample time to study the  course   and most importantly  catch up with old friends we had not seen for a while.

photo by Extreme Fotowerkz

Before we knew it , it was already time for our category to begin . As I was warming the car up and doing some shift light rev limit adjustment, disaster struck. Well  I wont get into it in detail( Click on “HERE” to read about it) .

 

Basically I had my oil filter come undone which resulted in oil engine oil spilling out of the engine onto the tarmac. This cause me to missed 2 timed runs while waiting for my mechanic to come with the engine oil and ‘correct’ filter.

With only 4 runs left, I totally screwed the first run and managed to only do a couple of decent runs which got me a 6th in my category. I doubt  I would have done any better even with any additional run given as the car did not feel as sharp after a few adjustments I had made prior to this event. The car was understeering into the corners and wheel spinning excessively out of them. Having those ahead of my standing with similar times showed that I was not the only one suffering.

Photo by Pohkinz Chu

The same goes for Jane whom, finished 8th, who was complaining the lack of traction her car had through out the course. Jane however did win the fastest female award .

Photo by Patrick Photograph

As it was my birthday a couple days before, I was pleasantly surprised to have given a birthday song treatment and the fastest birthday boy trophy for this event.

Despite our shortcomings, Jane and I both , as always had a good time and we both vow to come back for the next round !!

RESULTS

Class OD

6th Place ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD Team Sync Optima

8th Place AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH Team Sync Optima

Fastest Female Award: AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH

 

 

Ultra Racing Super GT Gymkhana @ Sepang International Circuit 9th, 10th June 2012

 

In conjunction with the Super GT held in Sepang, Ultra Racing once again played host to a Gymkhana event co organised by Jeet’s Wheelspin Motorsport and Akina’s Kuraz Events.Held at the Sepang’s Circuit Main entrance parking space, this two day event attracted over 40 participants .

A two-up format were used , where two cars were to compete on mirror courses, head to head ,then swap courses to for the second run. Both runs were timed and recorded without any elimination as drivers were allowed to continue regardless the results of their two up battles. So essentially the two up battle were for exhibition purpose as this was a timed event.

A mirror course is basically an identically opposing   course which is more confusing than it sounds.  As this was the first time I had ever competed in an event  such as this, I had totally screwed up my 2nd run as I was too distracted with what my opponent was doing rather than concentrating on my own run.

As the event started passed mid day on day one, we only had time for a  single timed run which was fortunate for Jane as she was not able to make it on the first day!

On the 2nd day, Jane was able to join us and  became my heads up partner through out the day. Anyway, I was chuffed at the fact that I was leading in the RWD category and was 2nd in the open category but on the final two runs, I was knocked out of the top position by 4 participants in the RWD category!!!

Anyway, Jane won the Fastest Female award…

while I got 2nd in the open Category

 

RESULTS

2nd place  Open Category  ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD

Fastest Female Award : AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH

Liqui Moly Ceratec Long Term Review: This sh*t really works!!!!

Finally after having Liqui Moly’s Ceratec added in my Silvia S13 on 6th May 2011 , one year and 9 days later , I had decided to do an oil change!!

Though not being a daily driver , this S13 had clocked over 4,000 km of hard driving  since the Ceratec additive was poured in .This includes, 2 track days in Sepang, 5 drift sessions , 1 drift competition and 3 autocross/gymkhana events and of course the commute through and fro to the events! In all honesty, this is not the norm as I usually schedule  my oil change based on number of events, which is 2 events for my competition cars  or  on every 6th month for those  road cars that is hardly driven.

Despite the abuse the lubricant had gone through, there weren’t any  noticible drop of the oil’s preformance which I base it on;  oil tempreture, smoothness of engine during acceleration and quietness of the  engine at idling.

So we got the car up the hoist and proceeded to drain the oil.

Though expected , it was still shocking to see the oil that  came out looked almost like black paint!!

Amusingly ,this caused a fair bit of commotion among the people at the shop.  Anyway, with the engine oil drained, the oil filter was replaced , a fresh can of synthetic engine oil was poured in and I was good to go.

Ceratec is said to be able to last for at least 4 oil changes once the additive had bonded with the internal engine components. So I was eager to see if there were any noticable differences and proceeded to test the car on the way back home. The first thing I looked at was the oil temperature  ; The oil temperature readings remained similar to the water temperature and were just a couple of degrees higher than than water after pushing the car a fair bit! This is one characteristic which I found unique when using Ceratec as I usually run on a higher oil tempreture as compared to water. I did not detect any changes of smoothness of engine and the car idled the same as before the oil change.  Please with the result , I headed home and planned to use the car again for an up coming autocross event  the following  weekend, unknowingly  which turned out to be the real test for the Ceratec Oil additive!

 

On that weekend ,I took a slow drive to the location  of the event and  while warming up the car prior to  my run, I had decided to adjust my shift light and proceeded to rev the engine to set the limit. A saw a puff of smoke coming out of the engine bay when I lifted off the throttle and thought that the car had suddenly develop a bit of blow by from the idling it had done and didn’t pay much attention to it.With the air condition on and stereo playing, I begin heard  loud rattling noises . As there were a few cars around me, all warming up their engines prior to their runs, I had thought that it must have came from one of the other cars. Yes..I’m an idiot…anyway a least 2 minutes had passed when suddenly I saw Jane running up to me ,telling me to kill the engine!! It was then I had realised that the noise had actually came from my car. Popping the hood , revealed that the oil filter had came undone causing the engine oil to splash out out all  over the engine. What caused this is another story all together but I was truly devastated at the  thought of an expensive engine rebuild , as posted on my  page.

I checked the dip stick and there weren’t a single drop of oil in the engine. Basically I had the car idling on an empty sump!! Things really looked bleak as I  waited for what felt like an eternity  for my mechanic to arrive. Eventually he did and had the the oil filter fitted back , poured some synthetic engine oil back into the engine and proceeded to start the engine. To my relief , the engine run fine. There weren’t any audible bearing noises which attributed to engine bearing damage and the rattling noise I had heard earlier were the oil starved hydraulic tappets which functioned fine once the engine was filled with oil!

Anyway the car worked fine and did not experience any drop of power  as I managed to go out and got a couple of decent runs but sadly , still got my ass handed back to me.:)

I find it ironic  that we often  see demonstration of oil additives protection on rigs that don’t look a bit like an engine internal.They usually involve a spinning bearing against something metallic to illustrate friction. Well, lo and behold , Liqui Moly Ceratec had just done one on a real working engine, thanks to yours truly and all I have to say is’ thank god  this sh*t works!!’

 

 

Conemasters International Gymkhana Challenge @ Sepang International Circuit 20th May 2012

Most of you guys were wondering; what had happened to me during the Malaysian leg of the Formula Drift Asia. I didn’t compete nor did I turn up for any of the three days it was held on. My sponsorship for the event did not go through making me unable to join. I was disappointed as  this is the first time I have not competed in this prestigious drift event.As the reason for me not making my appearance to the event ;Drifting is a great spectators sport but I make a lousy spectator so instead I had spent time preparing my car and  joined  the Conemasters series held in conjunction with ZTH’s Time to Attack event.

Having done 2 other autokhana/gymkhana events prior to this, I had a rough idea what needs to be done to  the S13, Blackie, and had spent abit of time prior to the event, tweeking the car’s set up. Thanks to Kian for working  on the car  the whole day ,only to see me coming back the next day to do more adjustments.  The car is far from perfect but it handles a lot better now than before

I arrived at Sepang, bright and  a bit too early that day as the organisers  were still in the process of setting up the course . Further more I was the only competitor there as no one had arrived yet..

However ,the organiser , Ben Lo being the  kind soul he was , took the trouble  to entertain me and also brought me around the course while I waited for the rest to arrive.

Soon  the participants slowly  made their appearance and we were  then allowed to go out on our practice laps.

 

Conemasters have a  different way of running their events where participants have an unlimited amount of practice runs within the given time as compared to  single practice runs by other organisers.

Our timed runs also worked the same, where we are divided into our respective categories  and were given unlimited runs within the time to each category.This gave the participants ample  time to experiment and improve on our runs !

Being divided into different categories with its own time allocations gave us time to hang out, relax…

goof around….

and also enjoy the side activities ..:)

However, it was all business when it was time to compete. Most notably were the AWD category where we see their times going down after each successive run!

The cool thing I like about autocrosser are they are always willing to share and help other competitors, two of the participants who help me the most were also my competitors fighting in the same category, Hafiz and Mickey which ended up sharing the podium with me!!

It goes without saying that  I really did enjoy myself and was pleasantly  surprised when I clocked the fastest time in the Rear Wheel Drive Category and 2nd fastest overall.

And the icing on the cake was the swag I had gotten for being champion; A car stereo player from Clarion, Shoes from DC, Motor Oil from Martini racing and vouchers and coupons from other sponsors!!

Many thanks to  Ben lo and the crew of Conemasters!!

RESULTS

RWD category

1st   Ariff Johanis Ahmad Sync Optima

2nd  Abdul Hafiz Salleh

3rd  Mickey Teoh

Overall

1st Mitch Chong Strawberry Fields

2nd Ariff Johanis Ahmad Sync Optima

3rd Mike Ng

Toyota 86 Drive Experience @ Changi Exhibition , Singapore 15th and 16th May 2012

The FT86 or Toyota 86  is certainly one of the most anticipated car of this century. Said to be the modernized version of the iconic AE86, this car had everyone clinging to their seats for almost 6 years since  it’s announcement. Singapore’s Toyota distributor, Borneo Motors took deliver of the first ever batch to arrive in the Sout East Asia shores  and wanted to do a launch for the members of the  press and also use this opportunity to show case the car’s attributes and also experience first hand, to their own sales staff  to aid them in their sales.

Being an AE86 enthusiast myself ,  I literally jumped at offer of given by PitCrew to not only  drive , guide and instruct  but also, as requested by the distributor, to drift it!!

A few days later,  I caught a flight to Singapore  and took a cab straight to the Changi grounds where  set up was being done. Upon arrival, I was greeted by  the sight of not one ,but a fleet of eight Toyota 86s .

 

The first I did was to pop up the hood to see for myself how low the engine is mounted. The engineers in Toyota and Subaru, had mounted the engine as low and as far back as they could to improve the roll center and weight distribution. What I had noticed was the lack of front wheel well which was replaces by plastic inserts. This allows bigger wheels and more aggressive caster that normally forces us to either knock the wells out or just cut them!

Interior wise, they had a nifty steering wheel which was said to be the smallest ever on a production Toyota car.

The dash was nothing to shout about  and center console was literally dominated by the  air con control!! I suppose they reckon keeping the driver cool is one of the most important factor in performance

They didn’t have to tell me twice to drive the car around to familirized myself with it. I drove the auto first; honestly knowing that this car only had 200 bhp at the crank, I wasn’t expecting much.  However what I was most impressed was how good the steering was. Very sharp with tonnes of feed back. The chasis seems to respond very well to the slalom course and what I love the most was how comfortable the ride was inspite of the lack of bodyroll.  Next was the 6 speed mannual, it had a bit more grunt and the gear change had a nice positive feel to it. The clutch felt a bit weak which was normal for a production car but the torson rear diff would be great if it was tighter.

 

Later that day , we were briefed  on all the modules that were to be done and Ivan Lim and I were requested to do a drift demo. The Toyota 86  by no means is an easy car to drift! Even with all the electronics and drivers aids all turned off, it took a bit of an effort to kick the tail out! This is attributed to how well balanced and sorted out the car was. Besides having  a torson LSD, the 86 had some positive front  chamber dialled into the car just to make the car slighlty understeer at the limit!

Speaking of understeering, I was really amazed how well the  drivers aid electronics worked. We demoed and encouraged the participants to unstablized the car , with throttle lift offs and abrubt  steering turns at about 80 km/h,  but it refuses to unsettle the rear!! We tackled the wet corner at speed but were greeted an initial understeer followed by a sharper turn in then understeer,  alternating  between the two throughout  the duration of the corner which allows the car to actually turn unlike other drivers aid which just feeds you gobs of understeer thus forcing you to stomp on the brakes to sharpen the turns

 

TRD version… Bodykit , full exhaust system ,19 inch rims and 6 pot and 4 pot brake calipers!!!

 

. Besides the  wonderful PitCrew guys and my co instructors ,driving the 86 made it feel like it wasn’t work at all throughout the 3 days I was there!. Though not a big fan of the looks, I loved how the car handles and behaves. I was so comfortable with the car that I was doing  3rd gear drifts  in the tight space we had without any problems. However,the Toyota 86 by all means is not and should not be limited to only drifting. The balance of the car allows it to be versatile for any other forms of driving. With a bit more power, I believe other manufactures will have trouble coming up with something as well sorted out as the Toyota 86!!

Would I get it? You bet!!…..once I could afford it laa :p