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.

Picture taken by ozzmosis

Picture taken by ozzmosis

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!!  .

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 .

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

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

Some drifters skipped breakfast just to be there early..

Warna nyata boys all set to begin practice

Jane supervising the Goodyear display while Ejat  ‘tumpang G’

Jane…phweet pose

Rudy’s new ride making its first appearence

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

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

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

Yokohama’s Ah Heng and crew

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 !

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.

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!

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!!!

Derek Lim’s ride…

Final result…

Tan Tat Wei winning top podium

KT Wong, with a deserving second

Derek Lim clinching the final spot on the podium

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!!

(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)