GRA Round 1/09

Great captures from the first nite race at GRA

Yoong finish 2nd in class...all in good fun since we decided on the eve of the event to go play since we were having a bit of a free time.

He was flying to set times and I was actually "flying"...thanks to Andy for a such a nice catch

Car Club Rendezvous 2008 Leg 5, 14 Dec 08

This was an event held by Motorsportchannel.com which main purpose is to expose car clubs to the motorsport scene. An autokhana were held in conjunction with the event in Genting Highlands and several car clubs like the RX8 Club and Mini Club were invited this round.

Since Sean and I were listed as 'professional' driver and not entitled to win anything, we decided to just go have some fun while chilling our weekend off.

Pictures taken by www.motorsportchannel.com

KKS-AAM Autocross 2nd November 2008

It has been 2 years since I last competed in an autocross event. I love autocrosses and had been doing it a lot during drivers training program with Sean but we’re never serious into competing.

Recently, there have been quite a number of autocross events going on. The KKS-AAM Autocross is one of them. Seeing that the Dunlop 32 and Dunlop 13 were under maintenance after Star Drift Challenge Round 3, we decided to give it a go with the red twins.

This event took place at the Shah Alam Stadium carpark. There are a total of 3 layouts to be completed throughout the day. Each driver was given one practice run and two timed runs in each of the layout. The best run out of the two for all 3 layouts will be added together to determine the placing. The key to winning here is consistency.

We were put together with the Toyota MRSs in sports car class. The MRSs were very nimble and quick with superb turn-in and throttle response to maneuver through the tight turns and slaloms. So it seems that the only advantage that we had over them is power, which comes at a cost of turbo lag and uncontrollable wheel spin when the torque kicks in.

The Hiper DCM Silvia is setup as an all-rounder, so only minor adjustments such as dampers setting and tyre pressures were altered. To compensate for the natural poor turn-in of a drift setup which is caused by the 2-way LSD, I’ve opt for bigger 245/40/17 tyres on the fronts. With the bigger contact patch, steering feedback and mid-corner grip were much better, especially on the sandy surface of the Shah Alam Stadium carpark. Although the turn-in sluggishness was still present, the car feels more neutral.

After completing 2 layouts, I realized that I’m in a close tie with Dennis Loo, a seasoned autocrosser in his MRS. I decided to give it a fight on the 3rd layout and clocked a 59-second run. That run bumped my overall position to 1st, winning Dennis by a small fraction of 0.1 second. Sean popped an intercooler hose during his 2nd layout run and realized that his times were quite far away, so he were practically smoking up the course. Sean came out 4th place in sports car class but was put to 3rd place in graded driver class due to him being an AAM license holder.