Team
Matrix comes home with the goods
- MSS Rnd 1 2003 and Rotax Max Championship 2003
by Adian Yein Khalid
Welcome
back to another year of my obtuse rambling on the ups and downs of Team
Matrix! For 2003 Kiki is making a comeback to karting after a 2 year hiatus,
committing herself to the Yamaha KT100 class support race for the Malaysian
Rotax Max Championship, and myself (Super 1600) and Khaidi (Supercar)
will again take the fight to the Malaysian Super Series.
Throughout the past few months, none of us have been sitting idle: Charlie working on the upgraded SuperSaga (now with turbo 1.8 DOHC engine) as well as new gearbox and engine development for our venerable Proton Satria, Old Bill; Kiki has been practising hard and long every weekend at the Morac Elite karting circuit; whilst Khaidi and myself have been working out in the gym and playing futsal in an attempt to get fit (ok, me more than Khaidi!).
The first rounds of the championships were held on the weekend of 5/6 April 2003, and it looks like this could be a good year for Team Matrix!
Malaysian
Super Series Rnd 1
Super 1600
This year the big guns have made the move over to Super 1600 -
superstars Kifli Othman (yeah I was part of his team Merdeka Race 1999)
and Eddie Liew (multiple Proton Championship etc winner), and Ramesh this
year looks like he's here to stay.
Race 1: With Old Bill's new engine just ready that morning, everything was still tight but I could feel some improvements right away. Anyhow, taking it easy and running the engine in, I went for two laps at 80% and managed to grab 5th on the grid.
At
the start I timed the lights to perfection and shot away into 3rd place
at Turn 1, with Eddie ahead in 1st, Ramesh chasing hard behind him, and
Eric Yeo breathing fire up my arse in 4th. Heck! The strategy was to be
fast but smooth being the first race of the year and all, and past the
start-finish line for the first time Eric blasted past on the power..
damn these VTECs! He immediately began to hunt after Ramesh, and hell
he was doing a good job of it too until his engine gave up the ghost 2
laps later... So Old Bill and I were up to 3rd position!
As the laps flew by, I could see Eddie opening up a gap from Ramesh, with myself another 5 seconds or so adrift. I just kept it cool, reeling off consistent 1m21 laps; nothing to write home about, but given the new engine I was keeping the change up point below 8000rpm to be sensible. Still, we were pulling away comfortably from the pack behind that were busy jostling for position, led by Kok Pak Chiang in his Integra 1.6.
With
3 laps to go I notice Ramesh start to puff white smoke, and start upping
the pace. Unbeknown to me, Old Bill was suffering some gearoil leakage,
which had begun to show itself as the it kept on jumping out of 3rd gear.
Still, it held together and at the start of the last lap, we overtook
an overheating Ramesh for 2nd place! Woah!!
As we past the chequered flag, I could hear the crowd roar (many that attended that day were PMC members), and caught glimses of people cheering us on from the pitwall, including SIC Officials and Marshalls! The MatSpeed crew were ecstatic, and Charlie was on the moon! After trying so hard last year, results are finally beginning to show.
Race
2 was wet; wet, Wet, WET!! It just started to pour as we lined
up on the grid, and we sat patiently in our cars for 10 minutes sitting
in the rain as race control waited for the thunderstorm to abate. Finally,
we were given the green flag to start the warm up lap, but some confusion
ensued and Kifli mistook this for the start of the race and sped off into
the distance! The rest of us, just as confused, gave chase and next thing
I know everyone is going for it! With the rain still slamming down and
most cars' windscreens fogged up, it was absolute chaos! There was standing
water e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e!!! Next round, red flag was shown and we were
called in. After more confusion and discussion, it was finally decided
that the Super 1600 race would be postponed till after the Supercar race.
Alrighty then...
At the restart I began from the front row, but got spooked by the start lights that turned on and off quicker than it takes you to say "Shag me!" and the whole world and his uncle dragged past on the run down to Turn 1. Dammit SIC I thought that start lights are meant to be on for at least 3-5 seconds!! I made up for it by braking as late as I dared and moved into 4th behind Kifli.
In the wet, the car with it's new, lower settings was suffering from roll oversteer as it settled on the bump stops. I took the fight to Kifli, but lost it in lap 3 at Turn 12, pirouetting like an Olympic gymnast off the track. Got back into the race, but was now 6th.
Old
Bill felt terribly nervous, the rear stepping out as soon as I rolled
into a turn and gave it some stick, even with the power on. Tried to be
as smooth as possible, did consistent 1m29 laps, slowly ever so slowly
caught up to the rest. Ahead, Kifli showed us his rendition of the Slippery-When-Wet
twirl, dropping him down to 5th. Rannald who was running 4th, not wanting
to look like couldn't water ballet with the best of us, on the 2nd last
lap shook his bon-bon and did a whirl and a hop-skip off into the grass,
where he emerged back onto the tarmac just in front of me. How convenient!
Starting the last lap I went for it, doing the old turn-in-late-and-duck-down-the-inside trick at turn 9. Gunning it as I went past, I understeered into his left door. As we powered through turn 10 he returned the gesture and slid into me, forcing me to give it up. As a result, I passed the flag 6th.
Overall on aggregate, I was 3rd for this round, which is our first podium in MSS, and a very happy result indeed!