Judging Toyo Drift Malaysia Series Round 2

Due to the arise of several issues regarding branding and supply of tyres, and that the Dunlop 32 was still under preparation, I was asked to be the judge of the Toyo Drift Malaysia Series Round 2. Judging alongside with me is Nazrul Afifi from Team Toyo Drift.

This is a 3-day event held at the Carpark A of Kompleks Sukan Negara, Bukit Jalil.

As suggested by the organizers, the drift course was setup ‘SSO D1 Preview’ style. It has a curved entry and a bump near the initiation point, and an outer clipping point with almost zero run-off which permits little room for error. During the Friday soft runs, there were a few mishaps, the worst being Heng from Banting barrel-rolled his AE70 360 degrees. He suffered a few cuts on his right hand caused by a shattered front windscreen, due to the fact that he was not wearing a race suit and driving gloves. It could have been worse if not for the organizers insisting a rollcage as an entry requirement.

Seeing the danger that the setup posed, the drivers had requested that the track setup be altered to a straight entry.

Following the introduction of Best 32 Tsuiso during Round 1, the organizer has decided to carry it on. However, taking into account of having the best qualifier versus the last qualifier if we were to follow the traditional format, the level of driving would be too far apart and it makes it difficult for the best qualifier to adapt to the last qualifier. I have thus come out with a new format of Best 32 Tsuiso, whereby the top 8 qualifiers are seeded for best 16 while the rest would have to fight their way up the tree.



Tabulation of the scores was also automated this round to reduce calculation errors and speed things up. A simple computer program will do the trick.

Due to the difficulty of the drift course, only 28 drifters managed to proceed to the Best 32 Tsuiso round, leaving 4 spots empty. 6 drifters scored zero in both their qualifying runs.

The level of drifting in the country has definitely gone up, and it even amazes the GM of Toyo from Japan. There were some notable performances from Ivan Lim of Singapore with his aggressive styles, and not to forget Tengku Djan and Ivan Lau which performed consistently throughout the Tsuiso round. The boys from Team Toyo Drift were doing great too despite the lack of luck on their side.



All in all, it was a great event and I’m definitely looking forward for the next round, as judge or competitor.