Karting Singapore

Singapore Nationals 2010 - Race 4

admin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:47:18 +0000

Karting Singapore Rental Kart 2010 Series - Race 3

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:22:54 +0000

Its race day again for the Karting Singapore contingent of drivers.

On the eve of National Day, You Zhi once again seized pole position in qualifying and completed the day as winner of Event 3.

Singapore Nationals 2010 - Race 3

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:15:09 +0000

Rain was the challenge confronting drivers in Round 3 of the 2010 Nescafe Singapore Karting Championships. Although practice and qualifying on Saturday were relatively dry affairs, the sky opened late on Sunday morning, leaving drivers and their crew to scurry around with adjustments for their wet weather setups.

In the Cadet class, a wet track kept drivers very cautious over the first couple of laps. However, it was Maximilian Fewtrell, who salvaged a dismal performance in qualifying by coming from behind to win the Cadet class by a margin of 2.077 seconds from Jon Lee Xuan Hao who had started on pole in the finals. Through sheer determination, Maximilian Fewtrell hunted down the leader who had broken away from the chasing pack and overtook him with four laps to go. Glenn Chiam rounded off the podium in third place. “I was very happy to have qualified in pole position and I tried my best to pull away as much as I can from the pack in the final. The track was wet from the rain and it was a new experience for us to race under such conditions. It was a pity that I lost my lead, but I will continue to work hard,” said Lee.

In the Junior class, championship leader Anderson Martono jumped Chen Sze Ming and took the lead into the first turn. However, a win was not to be as a spin left him to rue the weather as Chen Sze Ming drove to victory followed by Andersen Martono and Amin Noorzilan. We leave a footnote for Thaddeus Lee who could not fight for the win this weekend as he had a disaster, when on pole during the prefinal, he stalled his engine on the warm-up lap.

In the Senior class, Mohammed Nasri Naufal provided a clinical display of dominance as he raced across the finish line 26.4 seconds ahead of Sean Hudspeth and Julien Fong. However, during post race scrutineering, both Mohammed Nasri Naufal and Sean Hudspeth karts were deemed to have infringed technical regulations and the pair were disqualified, leading to Julien Fong and Lim Zi Yang Ivan taking the first and runner-up places on the podium. “It is most regrettable that this had to happen but nonetheless, they are still winners in my heart. Opai [Nasri Naufal] displayed a fantastic result and he finished way ahead of everyone else. This is part of racing and we will ensure such things will not happen again,” said Jonathan Tay, team principal of Drakar Racing.

It was a slightly drier track when the Master’s class final was run. Round 1 winner, Sheridan Thomas, was eager to reestablish his winning form and he did so, comfortably taking a win from his championship rival Lee Kok Khiang. Lim Keong Liam, ever a consistent performer, took third place. Run in the same race, the Rotax Max sub-category, was won by Kenneth John Smith, followed by Rashid Bin Ramli and Raymond Low.

The Veteran class for drivers above 45 years old seemed to provide all the excitement for the day in both the prefinal and final races. Jerry Ibara, had an eye-catching flip on the first corner of lap one during the prefinal race. “I slotted into fourth behind Leon Khoo at the start. Going into turn 1, I saw that Pascal Delmotte was going around and I took an outside line into the corner to avoid. I thought I gave plenty of room but assume Pascal’s momentum caused his kart to roll backwards towards the outside of the turn. Whether he was stationary or still rolling I can’t confirm, but I hit his right rear wheel with my right front and side pod.” said Ibara.

However, the excitement was not to end there. As the last race of the day, and in semi wet-dry condition, whilst the majority of the grid took to the track on wet weather tires, Richard Wee opted to take a gamble by choosing to come out on slicks. Perhaps fittingly, Lady Luck was smiling on Richard Wee who was the driver that stopped to help Jerry Ibara from under his kart in the prefinal. Kenny Yip, the pole-sitter led the first half of the race, but as the track began to dry very quickly in the afternoon sun and track conditions improved, a dry line allowed Richard Wee to pick his competition off one-by-one for his first race win of the season. Leon Khoo Beng Koon and Pascal Delmotte took runner-up and third place respectively.

It is perhaps best left to William Hong of William Racing, who summed up a long but satisfying weekend for him and his crew of mechanics and support staff – “We had 3 wins out of 5 classes, the other 2 we had no entry. We had first, second, third in the Juniors, all engines sponsored by us. We are first and third for the Masters and first and third for the Veterans.”

Round 4 of the Championship will be held once again at Kartright Speedway on August 28 and 29.

Karting Singapore Rental Kart 2010 Series - Race 2

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:37:08 +0000

Sunday, 6 June 2010. - race day once more for Singapore grassroot karting!

Event 2 kicked off with many familiar faces as well as a couple of new ones.

Fortunately, rain did not spoil the event which kicked off at promptly at 7.30pm.

Racing was competitive across the entire grid. Lot of close overtaking, wheel to wheel contact and daring race maneuvers with the simplest of spins in the Heats relegating drivers back several places for the Finals.

Shortly after 9.00pm, at the close of the event, we had a new event winner, You Zhi, who proudly took 1st place in a commanding drive as well as the honour of setting the fastest qualification timing.

Below is a video and photos of the event.

Singapore Nationals 2010 - Race 2

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 15:23:11 +0000

It is once again race day in Singapore!

Scarcely a month after the inaugural Nescafe Singapore Karting Championship (SKC) event, local drivers, mechanics and their teams are back at the Kartright Speedway track to compete in the 2nd leg of the 5 leg championship.

The event has already begun to draw interest from other parts of the Asian region. However for 2010, the Singapore Motor Sports Association (SMSA) has decided to classify the SKC as a national championship and to limit participation to Singapore residents (both Singaporeans and foreigners) who will have the chance to hone their skills before the entry of competition-hardened foreign drivers and teams.

As in the April event, the class with the largest participation was the Senior Masters for which 2 separate groupings had to made. The total number in this class was 21 drivers followed by the combined Senior Open / Senior Veteran of 13 drivers and 5 drivers in each of the Junior and Cadet classes.

The Cadet class was won by Maximilian Fewtrell who demonstrated commanding wins in both Heats as well as the Prefinal and Final. 2nd place was strongly contested by Jon Lee and Glen Chiam, both driving for Drakar Racing. At the end of the day, Jon Lee and Glen Chiam took 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

The Junior class was won by Anderson Martono, who initially suffered a DNF in Heat 1 but went on to win the rest of the races to take 1st place. Amin Noorzilan and Yeo Hong Yang took 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

An interesting mix of two classes were combined to a single race category. Nevertheless, drivers from each class were still graded according to the performance of their peers within the same class. As the race weekend wore on, the race data showed an interesting pattern emerging for which the longer the distance of a specific race, the greater the number of the younger Senior Open drivers took the top spots. The final results of the Senior Open class was Andrew Tang in 1st, Ivan Lim in 2nd and Mohammad Nasri Naufal (Opai) in 3rd. Incidentally, on his way to a class win, Andrew also timed one of the fastest laps for the weekend amongst all the drivers with a time of 33.487 set in the Finals when the track was well rubbered in. The final results of the Senior Veteran class was Leon Khoo in 1st, Jerry Ibara in 2nd and Kenny Yip in 3rd.

One change implemented by organisers coming into the 2nd event of the SKC series was to recognise the performance difference of the KF2 to the stock Rotax engine. It was decided that separate podium honours would be awarded to the top 3 Rotax finishers. In order of position, the podium finishers in the Senior Masters Rotax category were Kenneth Smith, Rashid Bin Ramli and Drakar’s principal, Jonathan Tay.

Proving that second time is the charm, Paul Lee improved on his previous runner-up finishing in the April event to win the highly competitive Senior Master’s class in convincing fashion. Rhommell Singh took 2nd place and Darren Ooi took 3rd place.

Karting Singapore Rental Kart 2010 Series - Race 1

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 14:24:50 +0000

The first event on the 2010 Karting Singapore rental kart series calendar saw 30 participants take to the track on Sunday evening.

The event was held at the Kartright track and was the first of five race events that were planned for the year.

On a month which saw significant rainfall during the evenings, it was a blessing to find an absence of rain.

Having experimented with several formats during the previous year, the event format for 2010 took the form of a quick warm-up session followed by three Heats sessions of 10 laps each which determined the race positions for the Finals for which all participants raced for honours, medals and championship points. As a prelude to the event, the grids for the Heats were determined by a qualification session cum Time Attack that was held during the preceding weeks before the event.

Coming into race day, Charles Teo took Qualifying Pole with a Time Attack lap time of 46.842 secs.

At the end of the day, the winner of the event was Yap Zhan Hao, followed by Charles Teo and Gerald Tan. Taking fourth place was Fuji Sartono and rounding off the podium places was Bong Andres with fifth place.

Medals (and additional championship points) also went out to the winners of Finals 3 and Finals 2 which were Hamizan Ali and Lee Wee Leong respectively.

Detailed results can be found at http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=517858 .

The championship points total after Event One are as follows:

Singapore Nationals 2010 - Race 1

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:46:47 +0000

The inaugural Nescafe National Championships took place from the 16 - 18 April 2010 during which many of the local karters took to the tracks to battle for supremacy in their respective classes.

The results of the event are as follows:

Cadets

1st - Jon Lee Xuan Hao

2nd - Daim Bin Hishammudin

3rd - Glenn Chiam

Juniors

1st - Mohammad Nasri Naufal

2nd - Lim Zi Yang Ivan

3rd - Julien Fong

Masters

1st - Sheridan Thomas

2nd - Lee Kok Khiang

3rd - Benjamin Goh

Veterans

1st - Yip Ngai Meng Kenny

2nd - Richard Wee Keng Kwok

3rd - Premkumar Pillay

Racing At Kartright Track

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:45:22 +0000

These are several karting related videos that don’t specifically fit into any of the specific categories.

Hope you enjoy them.

Baby Wipes - My Go-To For Stains

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:18:35 +0000

This may absolutely sound incredible, but I’ve found a great solution for those cases where you’ve just handled the chain and your hands are caked in grease, oil and lubricant.

Baby wipes will dissolve the mess and as a side-benefit, leave your hands smelling sweet - I kid you not!!

I discovered how effective baby-wipes was over the week when I was handling my chain which fell off the sprocket. My hands were covered in chain lubricant and I tried desperately to get them off with generic washroom soap but to no avail. I came back to the pits and was handed some baby wipes from a friend who had his wife and child on hand - next thing I know, I had wiped my hand clean using just 2 wipes.

Evidently, baby wipes are created from moistened paper with water or other liquids like isopropyl alcohol, softeners, lotions or and perfume.

It is the isopropyl alcohol which is apparently a secondary alcohol made from combining water and propene. The chemical dissolves a wide range of non-polar compounds whilst being relatively non-toxic and quick to evaporate.

Wikipedia goes on to list that it is used to clean out (DOT 3, DOt 4) brake fluid traces from hydraulic brakes, which to a layman like me implies that the stuff in baby wipes is the same stuff in my brake cleaner. Hmmm.

Sticker Kits - Create Your Own Identity

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:47:40 +0000

Sticker kits (or the lack of them) gives your kart an identity on the track whilst your racing in a pack.

Surely as there are those that will argue its just a cosmetic tool and that its only proper to race battle-scarred karts, there are others who will counter-argue the merits of “hot” looking karts that personify the thrill and excitement that accompany racing.

For those looking to enhance the look of their kart, there are several ways to do so. Firstly, sticker and bodywork sets can be purchased from local dealers who usually have spare bodywork as well as sticker kits of the chassis brand they carry.

For those looking to purchase after-market sticker kits and decals, there are online sticker vendors such as http://www.godecalzone.com/ that either offer sticker kits of different designs or provide templates from which you can create your own design. Be aware that the material of sticker kits come in different ply which affect how easy they are to work with and how resistant they are to physical damage. From my experience, the cheapest form, the 10mm ply is fine as long as the vendors ensure that their glue is sufficiently sticky. Another important point to note is that the vendor will generate the designs according to the bodywork template you specify - bodywork kits on karts can vary though it is a simple exercise to know which template to specify - there is usually a branding on the bodykits that will specify both the manufacturer brand, i.e. KG, and the bodywork model, i.e. Stilo. Should you print the wrong set for their bodywork, you will find trying to fit the stickers on the kart a futile effort as they will usually be either too long or too short. Once you find a design you like, a good quality vendor will send you your sticker kits in a cylinder, which will ensure that the stickers retain their shape and are not accidentally bent.

Upon receiving your sticker kits, via a visual inspection, ensure that you have purchased the right size for your bodywork. Thereafter, you will need a scissors, a needle, a plastic spray containing a solution of soapy water, a hairdryer or heat-gun and I would also recommend baby wipes.

Pasting on stickers or decals is no easy task. Ask anyone who has ever given a try. A set of side bumpers, nassau panel and nosecone can take about 1-2 hours for the inexperienced.

Always plan ahead before proceeding to apply a sticker - to minimise the number of “ugly” gaps between adjoined stickers, you will need to compensate on the placement of certain stickers.

The actual application is relatively simple - having wiped down the surface of the bodywork with a baby wipe to remove any solids that would affect the flatness of the applied sticker, spray soapy water on both the section of bodywork that will be covered as well as the rear of the sticker. To get the stickers to slide easily, you should rub in the soapy solution evenly onto the bodywork. By then, you should then be able to maneuver the wet sticker across the surface. Once done, application of heat from a heat-gun or hairdryer will highlight any air pockets and make the sticker pliable for which you need patience to work on bubbles, pressing them with a pin and making sure all the film lays flat. For curved surfaces, align the sticker so that it fits the curve, then whilst holding holding a section of the curve, apply heat and work the sticker. Use baby wipes to remove the excess soap water as well as any glue that may stick to the surface of the stickers.

The example below shows a sticker kit that was recently applied to spare bodywork.

In addition, I applied a clear urethane film as a surface guard for my front bumper and sidepods, so as to minimise the scarring from light collisions.