Malaysian
Super Series Rnd 2 2003 - More cars, more excitement: MSS comes of age
by
Adian Yein Khalid
The
MSS is getting more and more exciting, with almost 20 cars no participating,
and we've heard that for Round 3 there will be even more! Even on our
side, Megat is now driving our friend Irwan's Mitsubishi MIVEC, so that's
2 cars from MatSpeed in the Super 1600 class, and as usual Khaidi in the
SuperSaga in the Supercar class.
Super
1600
Race
1: There was a big barge-up at the start of Super16 race 1... with
yours truly in the middle of it!
Basically, I started 7th on the outside, got a great start and headed down the middle. Ramesh, who started 5th in front of me, was now on my left. FS Chong, who started 4th, was on my front right, with K Perajun who started 6th, on my rear right.
I started getting squeezed by Ramesh, and edged closer to FS Chong.. as close as I dared. Suddenly I was hit behind from the right rear quarter by K Perajun, which pivoted my car and I smacked into FS Chong's left door, twice. I managed to get past him and was 4th into turn1.
After
the race, I went to apologise to FS Chong but he was infuriated and refused
to hear what I had to say. Perajun said that I drove into him, which is
pure bollocks, as witnessed by the TV cameras. I was infront, therefore
I had right of way. If you are behind, even if you are accelerating faster
than me, that's not my problem.
On
TV you can see him push my right rear quarter, and I countersteer to try
and stay straight but smack into FS Chong. It's a conspiracy against the
Old Bill I tell you, a lot of people can't accept that we're doing so
well especially after our podium result during Round 1. Even the some
photographers I met at the Race Secretariat were like, "Eh what's
wrong with you man, bashing into everybody?" and I was like "Balls!
Can't you see the pictures? I got hit in my rear!" and they're like
shaking their heads. WTF? You think I like bashing my car around, bitch??
Sorry,
had to let it out of my system, it was a very frustrating weekend. At
the end of Race 1, I was 5th on the track, but due to a Timing Error involving,
get this, Perajun's car, they relied on Manual Timing, and the stupid
manual timer placed me 6th behind FS Chong. Pak Chiang and I, nose to
tail, on lap 14 overtook FS Chong down the pit straight when he was facing
engine trouble. The whole team knew that we were 5th, but we couldn't
prove it!
Race 2: I started.. 6th of course... but there's another interesting story: There were rumours going around that a couple of the VTEC boys might box us in if we became too much of a nuisance. They've had enough of this little Satria that's the thorn in their heel: Not the fastest but pretty reliable, ready to pounce if any of them falter.
Anyway,
as luck would have it nothing happened, but from the start of Race 2 I
could feel that something wasn't right. I wasn't getting the power, and
had trouble shifting up and down between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, sometimes
missing completely and hooking 5th instead. I was being passed lap by
lap, and finally on lap 5 the gearbox gave up: down the pit straight,
hooked into 4th, pressed the accelerator, and the engine revved up without
any drive. Put it back into neutral, tried again, same thing. Whoops...
into turn 1, slotted into 3rd to slowly coast back to the pits, and something
broke and a whole lot of white smoke engulfed the car.. Kaput!
6th overall on the day and a nice trophy was a surprise though! Back at the pit we started packing up, I changed into shorts and t-shirt, hanging around.. the prize-giving ceremony was starting outside and I was in the Secretariat picking up my license, when suddenly my name was called out and the officials rushed me out onto the podium! haha.. apparently my "6th" in Race 1, on aggregate, was enough to bag me 6th overall: trophy, token prize money, and 6 precious points!
After
2 rounds, we're still 4th overall with 18 points, just 2 points behind
Eric Yeo, last year's Champion.