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