Cars & Racing

20 November 200524 April 2017

A1 GP gets a strong fan today

Tail Happy Racing with Tun Dr M & Sheikh Al Makhtoum

Fellow my-KARTers and Tail Happy Racing teammates Yusnee, Azlan and I managed to get some invitations to the Perdana Suite for round 5 of the A1 GP at Sepang on 20 November 2005.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir and SIC for extending the invitation to us. We thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality and more importantly the race.

And what an excellent race it was. Again, Team Malaysia demonstrated that they had the potential to be up there with the best by finishing 8th and 5th in the sprint and feature races, respectively. With this consistent finish, Malaysia is now joint 6th in the A1 GP championship after 5 rounds.

Both Fairuz and Alex drove strong races, and especially Alex despite experiencing another problematic pitstop which lost Team Malaysia about 10 secs and potentially 4th place. Alex managed to steal 5th from Team New Zealand on the very last lap drawing cheers from the 10,000 crowd.

Shame that the crowd was not as is should be given the size of the grand stands. It would have been great had their been more hype in the media weeks prior to the race. Sadly, the truth is that there was very little coverage in the local papers. The Star had only bothered to allocate a small panel to report the goings on of the weekend. In other countries there would have been pull out sections.

As it turned out, the Malaysian round of the World Cup of Racing was probably the best race of the season so far. There were battles through all the positions. And the fact that tyre wear was a factor made it even more exciting. Alex and Fairuz both had several sideways moments as they struggled for tyre grip.

The Malaysian weather also made a cameo appearance 4 laps from the end of the race to make things even more interesting.

Aside from enjoying the race, Yusnee did a lot of hard selling for my-KART promoting the round 10 final race to every personality in the Perdana Suite including TV personality Sarimah Ibrahim, Datuk Azman Yahaya, Aminuddin Omar, and Maznah Zolkifli.

All I can say is what a fantastic race and event it was. Let’s hope there will be more corporate sponsorship and support for our own team in the A1 GP. Malaysia is in sixth, and the best Asian. We only need more experience and funds.

18 November 200524 April 2017

A1GP comes to Sepang, Malaysia

Today is the start of the Malaysian A1GP weekend at Sepang.

Malaysia will be Round 5 of the 12 round “winter” racing series – the Racing World Cup of Nations.

It is quite a unique concept which harks back to the the pre-war Grands Prix series (precursor to F1) where (usually European) nations would have an entry with their own manufacturers to battle each other in the premier racing series. Those days, the teams would run in national colours – although those colours have somewhat changed in the modern day A1GP series (eg – Italy was red in the early days and now blue – the azzuris; and Germany was silver, but now follows their national football team colours).

Still the concept is a cool concept and for A1GP to race in the “F1 winter” offers racing fans something to follow when F1 is taking its long break.

As for Team Malaysia, this is really our first time in the motorsports world stage and as such the challenge for Team Malaysia is really getting quickly up to speed with the racing culture, the commitments to deliver results, the teamworking, the technology, the psychology, the PR and everything else.

Against popular opinion, Team Malaysia has done ourselves proud by being fairly competitive. Yes, there are teething issues, yes there is a hint of lack of experience, but being joint 9th and 9 pts off from 4th place after 5 rounds is pretty good. And this is on merit mind you – as Malaysia has constantly qualified within the top 10, and both Alex & Fairuz has done great things to improve on those grid positions. Alex was even up to 2nd in the main race in Germany during the early stages!

So things are looking up for Team Malaysia and hopefully they (we) can build on this momentum and continue to improve and catch the leading bunch of France, Brasil and Switzerland.

So Friday will see Team Malaysia putting the A1GP car thru its paces and hopefully both Alex and Fairuz can use a bit of local track knowledge to push the Team further up the ranks. If weather becomes a factor, let’s hope that it brings Team Malaysia a positive change.

So go Team Malaysia. TheFazz and my-KART are supporting you!

17 November 200524 April 2017

The gorgeous 407

Most people who know me know that I love BMWs. I’ve been a Bimmer fan since the age of 6 when my dad first brought home a red first generation 520 (can’t remember the E code number, though).

The Bimmer to me always has an aggressive front “face” and drove quite well for a sedan car… very much establishing BMW’s sporting saloon niche cars.

So here I was today evening sitting in my first Bimmer in a traffic jam, and along comes the Peugeot 407 alongside me. Damn, that is one gorgeous car. I mean, I fell in love with the looks of the car the first time I saw it, and it still gives me the shivers whenever I see one on the road. The car really looks so good in the flesh. Sadly, the 2.0 model imported by Naza into Malaysia is a underpowered compared to its direct competitors the Honda Accord, the Toyota Camry (urgh!) and the Mazda 6.

These were the cars I was considering prior to me going for the 2001 model E39 Bimmer. Of course the Bimmer drives better than any of these, but the Peugeot has the looks.

Jeremy Clarkson’s review of the car hit the nail on the head… he concludes:

What you really need, if you want to come across as moody and interesting, is something desperately unreliable.

This then is a car that offers the style-conscious motorist just about everything. We can see, as you slide by, that you must have a family but that you haven’t bought an MPV, which would mark you down as technically dead, or an SUV, which would identify you as being Wayne Rooney.

We can also see you’ve bought a French car, which means you’re anti-Bush, anti-war and possibly that you have a place near Pau. These are all good things, too.

Best of all, though, we can see you’ve bought a car that you knew full well would go wrong all the time. This is good, too. Sit at the side of the road with the bonnet up reading Victorian poetry and I can pretty much guarantee that every girl who drives by will want to sleep with you.

Great stuff! *grin*

17 November 200524 April 2017

my-KART project updates

One of the best things that I’ve been involved with outside of family and work is the things that Azlan and I started with my-KART.

my-KART started out as a way that Azlan and I could have regular kart races with our friends. We previously found it very difficult to get a good “quorum” individually so decided to “pool” our group of friends. We then formed the Yahoo mailing list and that was when the interest spread quickly – mainly thru word of mouth.

Today (Nov 05) we have something like 170 registered members (give or take 20). And we constantly attract around 40 participants for our monthly races and our quarterly enduros.

We now see a lot of opportunities opening up to my-KART. Certainly, my-KART has a key role in shaping the motorsports industry in Malaysia. Our vision of building racing talent for the country through popularising grassroots motorsports starts with the amateurs, the PBEM (professionals, businessmen, executives and managers) segment, the casual enthusiast, the parents, local companies, car-clubs and not forgetting the youngsters who are the country’s future. To this end our aims and behaviours must be noble and sincere. We must ensure we build the community and awareness whether they race or not.

Over the next few months until end 2006 we shall focus on 5 key areas (in no particular order):

community: building the community & be active in social activities
members: continue to drive memberships & inculcate our values amongst our members
excellence: focus on excellence in our racing events
alliances: forge alliances
awareness: create corporate awareness, and wider visibility

Now we have a group of 20-30 core members sharing common ideas and actively contributing towards my-KART’s and the local motorsports industry’s future. I would invite all of you to be part of this journey as my-KART moves into 2006 and beyond.

6 November 200524 April 2017

A1GP: Well done again Team Malaysia

The 4th round of the A1GP season at Eastern Creek in Australia just ended. The race was won by France, followed by Britain, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Malaysia.

Once again Team Malaysia had a strong and consistent race. Team Malaysia again showed a lot of maturity, with Alex defending well and not putting a foot wrong.

Our 5th place finished should in theory create a support boost for the Team when A1GP visits Malaysia in a couple of weeks’ time.

So far Team Malaysia has shown a lot of promise. In the last round at Estoril, Fairuz Fauzy demonstrated some race skill by passing others when other drivers were failing, although ultimately in Estoril we were thwarted by yet another pitstop gremlin.

The difference in performance between Malaysia and second place (GB) was not that significant although France seemed to be on another level. So there’s a lot of hope for Team Malaysia.

After 4 rounds, Malaysia is in tenth overall on 23 points, although as ever it could have been more if not for the troubles in round 2 and 3. So the underlying performance is there.

The key is for Team Malaysia to continue improving relative to the others. Support is vital now, if Malaysia wishes to create some impression in what is a new series.

Visit the Pitstop A1GP forum for interaction with Team Malaysia.