Tag Archives: Drifting

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)

Formula Drift Singapore 2009 ; Behind the scene and left over photos

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As promised, for behind the scene and left over photos from Formula D Singapore 2009 (and also to find out why Leong is wearing a cheeky smirk on his face) please check the forum section or  click HERE

Sync Optima Drift Academy:Singaporean Drifting 101 @ NJ 18/7/2009

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Cheaka and I had the pleasure of teaching the a group of Singaporean the art of drifting in Nusa Jaya Johore last weekend. We rounded the ‘usual suspects’ of cars and trailed them down south for the one day lesson .dscn1847

In attendance were also a mother and son team, Roslyn and Ben whom I had the pleasure of meeting ealier during the Formula Drift roadshow in Singapore last month.15 year old  Ben is  our youngest student to date ,whom by the end of the day even managed to impress Heng from Drift Garage with his newly acquired drifting skills!dscn1851

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Definately a talented bunch of people who I hope will take the sport seriously in the near future!!

Formula Drift Singapore 4th-5th July 2009


DAY 1

We decided to leave to Singapore a day earlier,as we had to be at the track at 12pm the next day and we wanted  to settle some logistics matters  and meet a few people before that.. We managed to timed everything to perfection but  was held back by the decal shop fiasco which I shall not elaborate here. We finally got to Singapore at 8pm which was already too late to do anything . So we decided to check in , grab something to eat and call it a night..

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DAY 2

We arrived at the track  at 10am. The course looked  intimidating damn  scary, especially with the concrete walls lining the entrance of the track. What worried me the most was the man hole cover that causes cars to unsettle mid way through the first outer clipping point. Ivan Lim , Cheaka and I all had our cars pointing straight mid drift during the media promo day, which  had us plowing  straight through the cones lining the outer track . Those cones are now being replaced by concrete walls which I am certain would not be as forgiving ..

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and more concrete


The stunt show rehearsal ,scheduled today,was canceled due to a few drivers involved were not being able to arrive today. So instead ,we did  our drift taxi ride practice. To keep it fair to the other drifters, we were no allowed to  practice on the full course  and and   not use the official starting point ,we were instructed to  begin our runs mid way through  the first corner. As the  organizers and sponsors were watching us practice,  so it was also   a rehearsal as they would hate for any unpleasant surprises to happen tomorrow.

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Mattie Griffin, ranked 5th in the World Freestyle StreetBike , making his freestyling tricks looked easy. A real nice dude that stays away from the ‘red stuff’ in his nasi lemak

Cheaka , Yoong , Sean and I only got about 4 runs each before it started to rain heavily. So we decided to call it quits. It was about that time the Goodyear Thai drivers arrived.  We helped them unload and just hung out where I got the chance to brush up on my Thai-glish.

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Pop (blue t shirt with yellow stripes) checking out Nakorn’s Soarer being unloaded

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Pop’s ‘SR20 powered Rx8 faced’ Mx5!! Both of the Thai drifters cars were only recently completed. It was unfortunate they suffered mechanical trouble throughout the weekend as they were certainly a force to reckon with in Singapore this year!

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Thai pop star looking , Nakorn (yellow T shirt) checking out the installation of the side impact bar on his Soarer.

DAY 3

Media day!!! We arrived at the track at 8am and promptly got suited up. All the drivers representing Goodyear were present for the press conference .Thailand , Malaysia , Singapore and Hong Kong were all represented!

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Press conference with all the Goodyear drivers present , with ‘the voice of Formula D’  Jarrod DeAnda at the helm

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Formula D judges , Tony Angelo and Andy Yen explaining their new judging format which was a lot different from what we are used to

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Err yes the Goodyear logo will be bigger next time Mr Law…sorry 🙂

. We were then brought out to the track and gave the media taxi rides out on the track..

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Jane with TV host Jade who caused a stir because of the  massive chrome sneakers she wore that day…she later told us it was the wardrobe department’s fault 🙂

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Marcus taking the drivers attendance before laying down the rules

Later that day we had our first drivers briefing conducted by Marcus himself. This was followed by a track walkbout with Pit Crew’s Jason

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Jason assuring us that the concrete wall this year is softer than last year’s…heeheehee

It was all fine a till I arrived   back to the pits. Leong comes up to me and says ” Bro, I got bad news!!”  The first thought that went through my mind was that I have some mechanical trouble or even worse ,blown my engine again. He then informed me that they had allocated the wrong tires to me!!! This came to be a big blow as I had used what little tires  that we brought over from Malaysia and the tires that we got for Cheaka which were too narrow ( width) for me.It is not uncommon for stuff like this to happen on an event as large as this ; tyres were being  allocated and distributed to all the Goodyear drivers and a minor glitch such as this is bound to happen.  Marcus, bless his soul, tried his best to resolve the situation by getting Yoong to agree to give half of his allocation to me ( Thanks Yoong ) but with stunt shows , taxi rides and practice runs coming ahead, I knew they were not enough. So I decided to use Cheaka tires instead ..Hell, I made it through last year with three cylinder, I reckon running on narrow  rears won’t be much of a trouble especially since they were Goodyear RevSpecs, which  is known to be grippier  when comparing with other brands of the same tyre width  . However, it will a bit difficult if it rained as the physical size and  width does play an important role when it comes to grip in the wet  . I just brushed the thought off and was glad the engine is still running fine!

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Our loyal crew during our day-end meeting (L-R) Melissa(black t shirt) , Jenshen (red), and Leong (black t shirt). We owe alot to them for what they had done for us throughout the weekend

DAY 4

Official practice day.

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(L-R) Phoebe (Colin’s wife), me with Calius, Cheaka, and Sean. Holding Caius ( Phoebe & Colin’s baby) made me miss Johanna even more. Hopefully we could bring her to the events when she gets older

We were all nervous about the concrete barrier that lined both the outer clipping points and the fact that the man hole cover that tend to throw our cars out of line didn’t help either.Though the reduced grip level was apparent , I got used to running on Cheaka’s tyres after a couple of runs.Both of us took conservative lines  during our runs and we managed to keep our cars in one piece for the first practice session. Cheaka was nailing all her runs and managed to impress the Formula D judges Andy Yen and Tony Angelo!

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Drivers parade with VIPs in attendance

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We did two stunt shows per day where we all took turns ‘challanging’ Mattie on his bike ..Yoong definately stole the show with his rodeo move!!!

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The stunt show drivers and rider

On practice session  two   it began to rain!! Practice was held up for a moment  in order for the track to dry up.When they finally did let us off on the track , it was only partially dried up with wet patches dotting around the course. This made the grip level varied through out the course .The tires on my car  performed exceptionally well but I had to dramatically change my driving style to suit the slippery condition. During this session ,Cheaka was unlucky as she drifted over one of those slippery wet   patches which caused her to spin and rear end on  to the  concrete wall at the second rear clipping zone .To stiffen Cheaka’s car, besides the roll cage, we had mounted a  brace at the rear of the car which  connects the rear  chassis  to  the rear suspension tower. The force of the  impact of the crash  had caused the brace to move the tower thus causing her right  rear absorbers and  rear wheel knuckle .to move almost and inch forward!! She was struggling with the car throughout the session after the incident!  Upon requesting, I was allowed to test drive her car   found that the  car was experiencing   under steer each time it was drifted to the left. As we didn’t have the right tools to straighten out the chassis and tower neither did we want to risk adjusting the rear caster and making it worse, I suggested that she just increase the rear tire pressure to reduce  the understeer and try to adapt to it.

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NHK interviewing Jane

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Many  Singaporeans in attendance were interested in the  sport  and many were eager to get involved. With Binter and Formula Drift Holdings continuing paving the path, I’m sure we will be getting more Singaporeans participating next year!!

Day 5

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The nice people from TyrePac providing their tyre changing services

Competition day!! We were all buzzing from excitement as this is the day that we were waiting for!! 37 drifters top drifters from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong kong, China and Indonesia going head to head against each other!

Practice was good and I basically went 7/10 after seeing Ivan Lau’s crash on his first run. Thankfully Ivan managed to get his car fixed in time for qualifying. Qualifying was a straight forward affair. I did what I thought was one of my best run on the track but  was really disappointed when informed that I had 74.5 points on my run. I got out of the car , took off my helmet and gloves of and just sat on the curb . Back in Malaysia with a score like that you might not even make it to top 16. However , amazingly my score remained highest till it was qualifying round 2!! By the end of round 2, my score was ranked third highest behind Tat Wei and Djan!

It was a huge shock to find out that Ivan Lim failed to qualify. Based on his practice runs ,he was definitely one of the favorites for the weekend. However, situation like this do happen and it was unfortunate to have happened to someone who is a good as Ivan. I am sure his luck would be better for the up coming rounds!!

Cheaka did well ,inspite of her damaged rear!!She managed to wrestle the car to an amazing 17th place qualifying

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Goodyear autograph signing session

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The guys from Drift Garage. We wish we could have spent more time with them but I’m sure the oppurtiunity will arise soon 🙂

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The pretty girls I didn’t get to ‘flip’…they volunteered to be our co drivers during the ‘Z in the box ‘ ( renamed from Flip the Bit*h for obvious reason) session we had the day before

TANDEM BATTLE

I was paired of with Shah from Singapore. An aggressive drifter which I know will be a tough fight during tsuiso. Since I qualified 3rd ,my battle with Shah would be the 7th pairing. So I decided to chill out in the car and poke fun at Jenshen (RyuK1d)  who was my umbrella boy :). To my horror it started to rain!!!! Aww man!! Images of me spinning out during entry started to flash in my head!!! They had to stop the tandem battle to wait for the rain to stop. When the rain begin to ease off a bit,they sent us out in a group to help dissipate any standing water  on the track.  The track however appeared to be alot wetter than the day before! I love the wet and I have done numerous tandem battles in the wet but never on my current setup before! I drove out on the track and tired to initiate at my normal  speed and aggression  but only to have spun  at the entry!! Thankfully I managed to avoid the wall.. That run definitely didn’t do much for nerves!

Watching Ivan Lau and Zee’s run didn’t help either. These are the two drivers that I looked up to and was shocked to witness the incident that wiped both of these drivers out! Ivan totaled the rear of his car trying to avoid Zee’s spin. Zee is one of Malaysia’s top drifter and he hardly spins!! I am unsure what was the ruling on the incident but both of the drivers were put out of contention

All I could do was grit my teeth and hum the theme song to ‘Barney’ to calm my nerves….

Not long after it was soon my turn to step up to the plate.I did my run with Shah as conservative as possible and managed to advance to the next round

Top 8 was against another top Singaporean drifter Jensen Tan. Jensen Tan is an animal of an opponent. With his circuit racing experience I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I somehow managed to do both runs without any major corrections and advanced to top 4.

Top 4 was against Tengku Djan.Being an owner of hachiroukus  and I know what they are capable of   in the wet.  So we lined up at the start, both of left the line together but as soon as Djan floored the throttle I struggled to get grip. He was three cars ahead of me when we reached the entry and which was maintained all the way to the finish

At the lead I knew I had to go all out , I entered the first corner as fast as I could  but I gingerly dumped the clutch when it came to initiation! To my suprise the car didn’t respond as I expected  and just went straight. I dumped again ,harder this time, and managed to stick the tail out. But this has caused me to go slightly off line when suddenly the front tires just washed off and made me spin!!

I was filled with mixed emotion, I was sad I was not able to put up a good fight with Djan but then I was happy to at least be able to share the podium with him. Team mate Johan Norman managed to breeze his way to the finals and and bagged 2nd spot, which was a fantastic for Goodyear!!

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Djan laughing when I told him that the ‘Thumbs Up’ sign meant Goodyear!!

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Djan 1st

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2nd Johan Norman

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3rd Me..yipeeee

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It was a pleasure to have met Tony Angelo and Jarrod DeAnda. Tony even volunteered to help fix Jane’s car after her crash!!

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Post race press conference

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Andy Yen was the one who encouraged me to qualify last year despite of my mechanical problems and it made me more deterimine this year especially when things didn’t go my way through out the weekend! Thanks Andy ..Go Go Corollas!!!

The Friends (Crew)


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Jenshen Khor (Ryk1d) took off from work to help out. He was there whenever we needed him; from getting soapy water for the decals to his picture taking duties ( the majority of the pictures we see here) He somehow manage to make everyone happy and ‘GAY’ whenever he was around. Thanks buddy, We won’t forget this

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Melissa Fong. She flew down from Malaysia  and was with us through out. She was our spotter during our practice runs  and made sure we were never hungry nor thirsty through out the day. She got burnt badly from standing out in the sun too long . We both can’t thank her enough for what she has done for us!!

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Ah Leong , a friend and owner of WHAT Motorworks, the guy I throw tantrums at and blame whenever there’s no one else for me to blame. I’m glad the car performed flawlessly through out the weekend. Sure we had teething problems the whole of last year but I am sure it is all behind us.Thanks for staying up all night back at the workshop and eating the fried rice and one fried egg I tapaued for us.

We would like to thank

Goodyear Malaysia

Goodyear Singapore

Goodyear Thailand

Binter Pte Ltd

We will be posting all the pictures in the Forum section once I get them sorted out…keep a look out for them!!

Formula Drift Singapore Advance Tech Inspection @ Goodyear Malaysia Headquarters 20/6/2009

Held at the Goodyear Malaysia headquarters in Shah Alam, the Advance Tech Inspection had the vehicles of the  Malaysian drift teams thoroughly examined for the up coming Formula Drift Singapore PRO/AM series coming this early July. Conducted by trained and certified Formula Drift inspectors, Ricky Lin and Benjamin Khoo , the vehicles were made sure to meet the stringent technical and safety requirements as specified by Formula DRIFT Holdings LLC. This was in line of Goodyear’s goal of  elevating the standards of drifting in Malaysia to international levels through it support and collaboration in this event !

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The light showers night before made the weather was nice and cool

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Tengku Djan was eager to get the his cars inspected that he came an hour early to be first in line!

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Benjamin and Ricky at work

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A number of the press were present that day and were given a brief overview of the event and which also highlighted the importance of the technical inspection that was  being held that day.

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Marketing Director K.T.  Law giving an introduction of the Advance Tech Inspection

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Marcus Lim , GM of Binter Co Pte Ltd, giving a brief overview of the Formula Drift Pro/Am series

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Ricky Lin explaining the steps and procedure done during the technical inspection

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While Benjamin Khoo ( Black shirt with red trimming) looks on. Seen here also is the multitasking Puay Ling (right) taking the role of a photographer too

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Yoong’s pristine ride had the photographers buzzing with excitment

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Fento D’s , Loyai showing off his new colors..