Monthly Archives: August 2009

MICCOS Drift Challenge 2009 ,16th August 2009

Since we had withdrew from our role as organisers of  the  MICCOS Drift Challenge , Ivan Lim from  Binter Singapore and I  had decided to participate in supporting in the event whom had  newly appointed organiser, Feinto-D on the helm.Ariff did not compete in this event as he had gone off to salvage his placings in the GRA event held in Sepang on the same day.

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As mentioned earlier ,our withdrawal from the event was  due to the absences of safety equipments , like water barrier, tire barrier, cones, fire extinguishers and etc and due to that, the newly appointed organisers had to alter the course to a much   smaller course which in turn is  a much  slower course with  much  more run off space. This was a wise move as at the edge of the course , there’s a steep downward  slope which we fear might cause cars to come barrelling down if they were to veer off the course!!

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Binter’s Toyota Chaser was sent to Malaysia earlier for Ariff to work on the handling set up of the car

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Due to other commitments, we had  missed out the Saturday’s practice,but  we arrived early enough on Sunday  morning to get enough practice .

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Driver’s briefing by the judges Loyai (Team GT-Radial) and Along (Team Toyo).

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After briefing ,we were then given another 30 minutes of practice.

As we were in Group C. We had enough time to drop by the cafeteria at Maeps Exhibition Hall D to grab our lunch. It was full of stalls with local flavors.

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After lunch break, it was time for qualifying . I had some great practice runs earlier but when it comes to qualifying  the weather changed tremendously .As the  temperature drop so did my grip level. Due to my lack of experience with the Asymetrics tires, I had trouble adjusting to the tire and totally ruin my runs thus not being able to get into the best 16.

As for Ivan Lim, he was very consistent with his runs and he qualified at 5th place. Since not qualifying, I became  his spotter during the tandem battle to help him as he was going against  driver’s that he had no experience with.

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Unfortunately, the rain came pouring down heavily immediately after the best 16 driver’s briefing. . Due to bad water irrigation on the car park, the track is all flooded so the competition was held up.

It took almost 45 minutes for the rain to stop and all the top 16 drivers were given some runs to get use with the wet surface of the track.

Ivan had to go against with Kevin Rajoo on his 180sx at best 16, with such , which he  managed to stick by Kevin and won the round ,  credit to  the great performance of the Goodyear Eagle RS-Sport on his Binter Goodyear Toyota Chaser for the  win

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At best 8, Ivan had to go against with Tan Tat Wei from Team Bridgestone in his Toyota AE86.A small and tight  track , along with  wet surface tends to favour the smaller cars, especially  when it comes to tandem battles. Both of them had good  runs but the judges gave an extra advantage point for Tat Wei for keeping closer to Ivan while following. Though losing out at best 8 ,Ivan did a great job drifting his  newly setup Chaser! He was alot more precise and confident while drifting.

Having qualified 5th and losing out on best 8th earned him  5th place overall in this competition. Great job Ivan!

Donut’s Drift Day (3D) version 1: MAEPS 23/8/2009

It’s been a while since we’ve been to a drift session . So , we jumped on the opportunity to join one  when Drift House’s Joe Han and James did one last Sunday .Held in MAEPS, Serdang, a  total of almost 20 cars took part in this private session which includes season autocrossers, drag racers , circuit racers and radio celebrities.

Despite of me getting my sideskirt broken and Cheaka breaking her gear box (!!!),we had so much fun that only towards the end that I had realised that I had fogotten to take photos of the event. I brought the DSLR but choose to use my camera phone instead. So here are pictures of whoever was left at that time..sorry dsc_0628

Cheaka’s 180sx suffered a broken 3rd gear early in the session..Barry/Low orange KE70 in the back ground

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(L-R)Lim Joe Han (Donut) , Cheaka, Terrence Lim ( Datuk) and Dexter…Three of the guys here are Malaysia’s 1st Gen drifter who are planning to make a come back!!

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Marco with his newly accquired Long Champs

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Taman Wawasan Drifters with a cool pick up…drifted for a while only though

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My poor coupe with a broken sideskirt and dented door…took the picture on the undamaged side

Joe Han and James are planning to make this a monthly event ..so keep a look out for the next one after Hari Raya!!!

GRA Round 3 @ Sepang 16th August 2009 ; Goodyear Asymetric on the podium!!

Since we withdrew from our role as the drift competition organiser for the MICCOS event. I had decided  to participate in GRA’s round 3 and try to salvage whatever position I had since I had missed GRA round 2 due to the clashing of dates of Formula D Singapore. In round 1, I was running 2nd in Pro OD class and I hope to get a least a top 5 by the end of the series.

I have always enjoyed the GRA competition as not only the experience gained from entering such an event has help me to improve as a driver but also because the event is so well organised , kudos to Mr and Mrs Ian Khong!!

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Mr and Mrs Ian Khong  and Mr Tang MAM steward

The other competitors competing also make up the reason why its such a joy to be part of this Auto cross event! With Top pros such as Ivan Khong , Andy Kow, Mike Ng and Mickey Teoh ,all willing to share their experience and are extremely generous with tips and advise on improving your runs!!

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Two of my sifus; Mike Ng and Mickey Teoh

This round is said to be the fastest out of the series , with cars hitting in access of 160km/h on the straights. A total of over 60 participants made out of Pro and Beginner categories
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Lim Joe Han with his V8 Cefrio winning fastest FR NA class and the Bling bling award!!

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Joe Han showing us his is slim enough to fit under the car’s undercarriage without the aid of a jackdscn2184

Tina showing us her bolting skills 🙂

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Yoong’s run were extremely clean and fast!!! He was running on a killer combo of RS sports in the front and rear..thanks for the tips bro..

As usual Yoong was super fast that day clinching the fastest overall time and 1st place in Pro OD with almost 3 seconds ahead from 2nd fastest Andy Kow with me trailing Andy by a hair below 1 sec!!

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Results were posted after each rundscn2237

Yoong practicing his pose to the camera when recieving his 1st place trophy during the award ceremonydscn2245

The Eco Coat girlsdscn2307

Yoong 1st!!!dscn2315

Andy Kow recieves 2nddscn2304

Me in 3rddscn2303

Ivan Khong in 4th

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The S13 which I was competing in for this event was fresh  from FxOpen event we entered the week before. Running on Eagel Rs sport in front and the Eagle F1 Asymetric in the rear, I was fairly confident that this set up would be perform well  for a competition  of this genre as tyre tempreture would not be as high as it is as compared to drifting. This is in regards with the Asymetrics which I felt , behaved  a lot differently  from the normal RevSpec we usually run behind ! What I really was impressed with was its low tempreture performance which I think would come as a bonus here in GRA. Looking at our used Asymetrics we had from the Malacca event, I had noticed that tire wear was more evident on the inner side of the tire, a clear sign of the soft wall technology these tyres had incorporated in its design.  It was then apparent that, due to inexperience , we were running too low of a pressure thinking that it  will give us more grip.  So I decided to run on a slightly higher pressure and see how it performed.dscn2341

The tyres performed execptionally well, worthy of its 5 star ratings it had received in reviews. So much so that I had not only placed 3rd fastest in the OD catagory but also 3rd overall!!!This I believe is the first podium finish for Goodyear Eagel F1 Asymetric in a competition in Malaysia!!!

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Yipeeeeeee

FXOpen Challenge@ MIMC Malacca 8th-9th August 2009

Tipped to be the biggest kart track in South East Asia, the Malacca International Motor Circuit played host to the inaugural FXOpen Drift Challenge  in Durian Tunggal, Malacca.

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Picture taken by ozzmosis

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Picture taken by ozzmosis

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The Managing Director of MIMC ,Tuan  Shaharul B Hj Mohd Ali , someone that  I had the pleasure of meeting who is such  a charismatic yet humble person. Keep a look out for more good things to happen on this track!


The 1.7 km track  with a width of 10 meters promised to be a challenge  as the section used for the drift course has a  tight entry  which is   taken in  third gear!!  .


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This track also  houses  top notched facilities such as shuttered pits, air conditioned briefing rooms and restaurant which  were made available to all the   27  participating drifters .

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Leading to the day of the event, we attempted find out more about the course and had found a video a drift session they had a couple of weeks earlier.

Armed with that, along with the track lay out with the  ideal drift line diagram posted by the organisers of the event, we set off to the track early Saturday morning

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The track lay out and optimum line given by the organisers which was disregarded prior to qualifying

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Some drifters skipped breakfast just to be there early..

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Warna nyata boys all set to begin practice

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Jane supervising the Goodyear display while Ejat  ‘tumpang G’

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Jane…phweet pose

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Rudy’s new ride making its first appearence

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This is how an engine bay of an over 500WHP monster looks like

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Zulfika fixing his fenders after a little mishap while  photographer Elli looks on

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Top pro drifter Kim Wan, who wasn’t competing, giving his Boostzone team mate some techniques advice

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Yokohama’s Ah Heng and crew

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Ray improved tremedously…must have been the private lessons he has been receiving

Practice  is the most important aspect when it comes to any competition as whatever your learn from it will be applied during the competition. However we were later informed during the pre qualifying briefing, that whatever we did during practice was all wrong, with  me in particular with the feint maneuver that I was performing prior to the entry .Having to go straight to qualifying without any warm up or practice for me to try out the next entry technique insisted by the judges, I had to make sure that my ‘winging it’ mode was enough to get me to the best 16th. Thankfully I managed a 9th placing with Jane doing well with a 16th in qualfying. Loyai was totally nailing his runs with ‘text book’  runs which earned  him the top qualifier position!!

Being in the last spot in the top sixteen had Jane going against Loyai who was in first. Jane held strong when following Loyai which earn her a 5-5 score but had straighten during her time to lead. I had to go against BoostZone’s Ng Choon Lai, who is one of the nicest person in the drifting scene but  is also one of the most ruthless competitor around!! With his beast of a machine and his expectionally high skills, I was in for a fight. I managed to hold my position during while being led by him  but unfortunately for Choon Lai  , he had veered  of track  when  I  was leading !dscn2110

Ng Choon Lai on the right

Top 8 had me go against Loyai! As most people know, Loyai is a good friend  and we always joke about having to tsuiso against each other to settle any whatever arguments we get ourselves into. I found it funny that this time it was for real and Loyai came over to my  pit, handing me his handphone, asking me to protest to the juges about us going against each other!! Infact I was still laughing while we were lining up for our runs. Anyway the fight was close and I was awarded the win when Loyai had straighten at the first corner.

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Loyai is the good looking one in the red t shirt , the other person is Djan..heehehee

Top 4 had me go against another BoostZone driver,KT Wong. Having one of the nicest AE86 around , KT was really consistent during his practice runs and displayed some nice tsuisoing runs with Ng Choon Lai during the practice run. I had an a slight advantage during my first run against him but was unfortunate to have spun out while recovering while  trying to avoid hitting him on the last corner! A silly mistake of being too aggressive which I hope  not to repeat!dscn2082

KT Wong’s nice AE86

The fight for 3rd and 4th, this time around I had to go against another competitior with a’ smallish’ car driven by Derek Lim! He was super fast and had grip at wherever I had none! A one more time was called up and he promptly disposed of me thus taking the final spot on the podium!!!dscn2114

Derek Lim’s ride…

Final result…

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Tan Tat Wei winning top podium

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KT Wong, with a deserving second

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Derek Lim clinching the final spot on the podium

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Me in fourth

I suppose with Jane making it to top 16th and me getting a 4th placing in the finals  is not so bad considering what we had to go through; with me having to improvise during qualifying and both of us having to  adapt to a tire we were totally new to *. I am sure , both of us and the team  , have gained from this experience which we will reap its benefits in the near future!!

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(L-R) Mr Law, Tuan Shaharul B Hj Mohd Ali , Jane, Me , Puay Ling and Ejat

Goodyear’s Mr Law and Puay Ling came all the way from KL to watch the competition.!!

*Incidently,   this   event   was our   first   time using the    Goodyear F1 Asymetric tyres. This tyres has been given 5 star ratings in their reviews and we were excited to be given the chance to give them a try. Off the bat, I was impressed with how high the grip level was when it was cold. Unlike the Revspecs which requires to be heated up, the Asymetrics were spot on during my first few laps on the course. With its deep grooves in its thread design, I believe this tire would perform expectionally well in the wet too!! Bear in mind, these tyres were not designed for drifting ,which puts the tires through extreme abuse and tempretures ,something that normal road user will never put the tires through  .In that aspect ,the RevSpecs were a lot better as  we had trouble adapting to the Asymetric’s  characteristics when the tyre and track tempreture went up ,causing a few off road excurtions for both Jane and I. However , given time ,I am sure with a bit of tweaking of the car’s settings, this could be easily be remedied . Having said that, for normal driving with a couple of sprited runs thrown in for good measure, regradless of the weather or condition ,the Asymetrics gets 5 stars from me too!!

Results

4th place ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD ( GOODYEAR SYNC OPTIMA)

16th place AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH ( GOODYEAR SYNC OPTIMA)

MICCOS Drift Challenge – Event Cancelled

Due to safety equipments were not sufficient enough for track layout by the main organiser, we as sub-organiser has decided to cancel the event for this matter.

We would like to apologize to participants and crew that had worked hard in preparing their cars for this competition and also to some that had travel from far.

An official letter of apology will be provided by the main organiser for those who needs one, kindly contact Jane at +6012 4870487 for more details.

Thank you.