I haven't been to a motorsport activity for a while, and I think I caught up with my cravings the last 2 weeks doing both an autocross and going to Sepang for a track day.
Of course, I was very very excited about joining these events leading up, and I really couldn't wait for the weekends to arrive. I had to get the car ready, serviced and all mechanically sound - as well as getting the sponsor stickers up on the car for the first event - GRA.
I joined GRA thinking it was similar to the motorkhana I did previously in Melbourne. I was pretty wrong.
Firstly, the event was so much higher speed compared to the motorkhana. It was almost impossible to reach third gear in the motorkhana, but just on the main straight at the beginning of the course here, before you know it I'm already in third gear.
The objective was simple, running through the same course to get the fastest time. We went through 6 sessions, so we took the total of the 3 fastest laps. There were also two main classes depending on your experience and the car you are driving, the Grass class and the Pro-Grass class.
Because of my car, I had to compete in the Pro-Grass class against all the experienced fellows, and our session began at noon on the hot and very sunny Sunday afternoon.
Cones were placed around the course at points where we needed to navigate through correctly, and if we made a mistake of going the wrong way then it would be counted as a "no finish".
I made such mistakes in my first session, I was concentrating too much on trying to remember the route and made two mistakes going the wrong way which cost me. Luckily after that I recovered and ensured I finished all remaining sessions. Sad to say though, I was pretty much close to the bottom of the table with my times.
The whole event though was pretty fun and was a very good experience in itself. There were some very awesome cars at the event, and I managed to meet up with some familiar faces there, and made many new friends which is always excellent.
Here's the winner of the event, Ivan Khong - smoking up the course with his Subaru.
Of course, with such car events, there will definitely be girls as well. Here they are at the end of the event during the prize presentation.
Check out my entire album from GRA here.
Work was extremely crazy the following week, and I was very very stressed out. I really couldn't wait for the weekend to arrive sooner - for my first Malaysian "track day" organised by HPC to be held at the Sepang race track.
I was very fortunate to get into this event in the first place as I signed up late, and was able to get in through the waiting list through a friend (thanks again Suzanne and Alvin).
As I was in the morning session - I made my way to the south track of Sepang on Sunday. After registration, there was a briefing as the organisers explained about the track area we'll be using for today - which was just the south side o the Sepang circuit, which was pretty much half of the overall track.
There were 3 groups of participants. Group 1 was the "beginner" group, in which a HPC instructor would be sitting with the driver during the run to advise on braking points, race lines as well and making sure the driver was ok with the run.
Group 2 was for people with some experience, which have had some form of track experience before. This was the group I was participating in for the day... well half day to be exact. :)
Group 3 was for people with quite some experience, and consisted of quite a number of fast and heavily modified cars. Alex Yoong, our Malaysian A1 driver was here today with a Lotus Exige as well, and he was taking some people out on some runs in this group.
He was very fast. Each group for the morning session went out for 3 times each if I'm not mistaken. Each session consisted of almost 10 laps, and there was no warm-up laps.
The HPC organisers were very professional, and there were flaggies at each corner ready for any incidents with coloured flags to ensure drivers were taken cared of. I have to thank the organisers for a job well done allowing the drivers to concentrate on the track and knowing that their safety is a priority.
Here's Alvin from HPC.
There were many types of cars here, and in my group there were Civics, Satrias, a Swift, a really interesting looking Supra and another Prodrive powered Subaru WRX driven by Zul. :)
My favourite picture of the day, is probably this one when I was running down the south straight.
I left the event with a big smile on my face, really happy that I finally drove on the Sepang circuit, which was something that was in my "To Do" list for the longest time ever.
Check out the complete album of the HPC event here.
Thanks to the friends that accompanied me to the event and many thanks to the organisers of both the GRA and HPC events again.
Looking forward to participating again in the future.
You should drive the Full track, that's more interesting!