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Karting Singapore Rental Kart 2010 Series - Race 3
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
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
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
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
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
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
Singapore Racing Teams Tackle The Malaysian RMC
It is race season once again …
This is not hard to tell as its all hustle and bustle in the weeks preceding the opening race of the season.
For a race team - there is much to do, so many things to organise, so little time to do so.
For team managers Jonathan Tay and Guy Ermer, life is constantly in a flux leading to race day. This year, two teams, BlackDog Racing and Drakar Racing carry the Singapore flag across the Causeway to do battle against the other teams and one another at the Sepang circuit near Kuala Lumpur. For both teams, this is the second season of team racing into Malaysia, although this will be the first year for Drakar members to race under their own team outfit.
Much is planned for 2010, which is a watershed year in which the teams will be racing for honours at events and tracks across Malaysia as well as the Team Enduro and Singapore Nationals events to be held in their host country.
With the teams planning to partake in several of the year’s events, the inaugural race for the Rotax Max Challenge Malaysia 2010 Championship held last weekend on the 13th and 14th of March is proving pivotal to the teams and drivers preparations for the rest of the year’s event. Thus far, the results of the March event for both teams has proved quite positive for drivers from both teams as several took podium honours or met their personal and team targets for the events.
We leave you with several photos from the RMC event held at Sepang as well as the PreFinal and Final results for the different events.
Karting Singapore Rental Kart Series 2009 - Race 3
So we finally come to the end of the 2009 Rental Kart Championship in which we saw drivers battling across several experimental formats.
Going into the final race, the outcome of the championship was finally determined in the 24 kart finals.
And the Champion of the 2009 series, through consistent point scoring across all 3 events is Charles Teo.
Congratulations to Charles and all our day’s medalist as well as to all the participants who have graced the three events of the series.
We hope you join us for the 2010 series!
The Morning After: An Email Interview Of The 4 Hour Endurance Race
Saturday, 9th of January. Today marked the official opening of Kartright Speedway, Singapore’s newest karting track that opened its doors to business in October last year.
The festive occasion began with activities in the morning cumulating with a 4 hour endurance race held in the late afternoon. At the stroke of 6pm, a total of eight teams took to the grid, and began proceedings to the 4 hour physical ordeal. Perhaps it was appropriate that in a vaguely familiar way, drivers in the barest of open-wheel motorsport racing could share a parallel to their esteemed colleagues of the F1 circuit in experiencing a race set through a period of dwindling sunlight into twilight and the bright glare of floodlights in the night.
When the dust had settled and all had been said and done, the podium finishers were:
(1st) Team Kartmaster II
(2nd) Team Drakar
(3rd) Team Arrow
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In KartingSingapore’s first email interview, we took the opportunity to communicate with 3 of our fellow drivers a day after their marathon event.
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JONATHAN TAY
TEAM DRAKAR
[KS] Its a day after a gruelling 4 hour 125cc endurance race held at Kartright track. How is your body feeling after the workout yesterday?
[JT] I don’t think that it is listening to me anymore. Really tired. We had a two months break from our last season race and after all the Christmas and New Year bashes, this is really a major challenge.
[KS] I saw over a hundred spectators and participants spread across the entire area for the event. Did you notice how many people were around and what were your thoughts just before the start?
[JT] Not really bothered. I like crowd. The more the merrier.
[KS] What was the strategy of the team going into this race? Did the team change strategy throughout the race?
[JT] We did a minor change during the race when one of our driver sprained his back. So three other drivers have to do most of the races and Opai is tasked with completing most of it. Well, we did burst the clutch of one of our kart and have to complete the last 40min on 1 kart.
[KS] During the course of the race, did you have any notable 1-on-1 battles with any driver in particular?
[JT] I caught up with Hafiz Koh at some point of the race. Our karts are pretty much sticking to each other for more than ten laps. I was pressurizing him like crazy and he defended really well.
[KS] Which other team were you all battling against for position through the course of the race? Was there any objective in mind before the race i.e. aiming for a podium position?
[JT] We were very confident with a podium placing as we really have a great mechanic team and our pro driver Opai has been in super form. We were setting our karts for the last two days and were really happy with their performance. We were aiming for first position but the other team is really strong too and with many young drivers.
[KS] What karts and engines did the team run? How did the engines compare to the KFs being run by the other teams?
[JT] We were using all CRG karts with rear brakes only and Rotax Max engine. Well, we do race mainly on the rotax engine. So far it is still doing well for us at kartright against the KFs.
[KS] After the middle and towards the end of the race, what was the state of the tires and engine?
[JT] Tires were still good but the engine is not taking it very well after 3 hours. I think that 4 hours is pretty much max for these engine.
[KS] How exhausting was the race? Did you encounter physical challenges as the race wore on?
[JT] Definitely. We were not as well prepared physically for this race. We are focusing mainly for the main Series in Singapore, AMC and RMC.
[KS] Did you enjoy the format of a day-into-twilight-into-night format? Were there any challenges as the sky darkened? Did the drivers wear clear visors throughout the race?
[JT] Clear visor should be a must. Day to night seems to work well. With our climate, it will be crazy for us and the engine to be on endurance in a hot afternoon.
[KS] Would you do another 4 hour marathon 125cc race again?
[JT] Certainly.
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DARREN OOI
TEAM ARROW
More than happy to oblige. i guess i speak on behalf of the team too. first n foremost we must thank our pit support guys lionel and ricky for doing such an excellent job of making sure that our karts stayed reliable, keeping our driver timings and of course valuable advice on how to prepare for the race. Of the 4 drivers that we have in our team team, 3 would be 1st timers in a race. not too bad for our 1st outing i must say. oki back to ur questions….
[KS] Its a day after a gruelling 4 hour 125cc endurance race held at Kartright track. How is your body feeling after the workout yesterday?
[DO] it was indeed a gruelling outing for us all with arms n neck a little sore the morning after.
[KS] I saw over a hundred spectators and participants spread across the entire area for the event. Did you notice how many people were around and what were your thoughts just before the start?
[DO] yes we did see a lot of ppl ard during the event , family , friends , curious spectators and of course some “fans” of certain drivers holding it up banners of ‘daddy’ their favorite driver.
[KS] What was the strategy of the team going into this race? Did the team change strategy throughout the race?
[DO] b4 the race, all drivers agreed to just go out there n have a agr8 time n gain some experience. take no unnecessary chances and just stay consistent. half way thru the race it was all abt having fun and keeping pace with the team in forth place making sure we maintain the gap between us as well making sure we last to the checkered flag.
[KS] What karts and engines did the team run? How did the engines compare to the KFs being run by the other teams?
[DO] we were running the arrows x1 chasis with rotax max engines. they were both very realiable and i must say an excellent drive. tires were only abt half worn at the end of the race. it was exhausting for the drivers but we agreed to pace ourselves n all agreed to save the best for last.
[KS] How exhausting was the race? Did you encounter physical challenges as the race wore on?
[DO] as usual, neck, arms n ribs took the usual beating.
[KS] Did you enjoy the format of a day-into-twilight-into-night format? Were there any challenges as the sky darkened? Did the drivers wear clear visors throughout the race?
[DO] tot the format was good as we did not have to worry too much abt the heat. n we all wore clear visors for the race.
[KS] Would you do another 4 hour marathon 125cc race again?
[DO] see u at the next race !!!!!!!
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ERIC HO
TEAM ARROW
[KS] Its a day after a gruelling 4 hour 125cc endurance race held at Kartright track. How is your body feeling after the workout yesterday?
[EH] Frankly, think my body is too old for this as it’s aching everywhere especially my neck. It was a workout indeed and I had the confirmation that I’m old when I saw the other faces at the podium being half my age.
[KS] I saw over a hundred spectators and participants spread across the entire area for the event. Did you notice how many people were around and what were your thoughts just before the start?
[EH] Yes, I think there were hundreds easily as spectators come and go and there were eight teams in total with mechanics and drivers already making up almost half a hundred. Didn’t have much to think about before the start of the race as I was so tired after coming back from China only the evening before and I wanted to have a short nap in my car which I didn’t manage to. At the start of the race, my concern was the drivers starting with me in the starting line up as I was the first driver in my team and knowing the characters of each of them starting with me was crucial to the start of the race if I wanted to have a clean start avoiding incidents yet maintaining a certain pace.
[KS] What was the strategy of the team going into this race? Did the team change strategy throughout the race?
[EH] The team strategy was to be on the conversative end of things as it’s a 4 hour event and we went for reliability and consistency over power. We chose the Rotax and used conservative jet settings as well, not going for speed but consistency and reliability were what we were sticking to from start to finish you can say. The truth is if you make a simple calculation, each driver would need to drive more than 30 laps at one go and if we are to push from start to finish, we could very well been too exhausted after just 15laps. Although we chose to be conservative for the race, we adjusted slightly during the course of the race when needed to when it comes to race management.
[KS] During the course of the race, did you have any notable 1-on-1 battles with any driver in particular?
[EH] I wouldnt really call it 1 on 1 battles but there were drivers which I wanted to over-take during the start of the race as during the second half of the race, things were pretty much more on managing the race when there’s a bigger gap between most teams. At the start of the race, there was a driver infront of me which I wanted to over take and it was not easy as he had good straight line speed. I kept pilling pressure on him and make him know of my existense right at his bumper for quite a few laps until he oversteered into turn 3 down the slope at the far end where I over-took him without risking too much contact as there were still 3 drivers who have yet to drive.
[KS] Which other team were you all battling against for position through the course of the race? Was there any objective in mind before the race i.e. aiming for a podium position?
[EH] From the start, it was hard to make a call as positions kept switching and it was too early to tell. It’s only about approaching the half way mark of the 4 hour race where we were clearer on who we were competing against. At that point, we kept switching between 2nd and 3rd positions depending on who’s going into the pit stops and we need to maintain our gap against one of the two Kartmaster team with Hafiz Koh running 4th (until they got DQ for weight issues at the end) chasing behind us. In short, we need to watch our backs as well as keep our pace to maintain the podium position. From the beginning, our objective was to finish the race and if podium finish was possible, we would push for it. Frankly, if you look at the years of experience and age of the other teams participating, we are not on the younger side of things and also 3 out of our 4 karters never participated in any karting competitions before this. It was their first for all 3 drivers and one of our karters only had 3 months karting experience although he was an experienced car park rally driver before. The team picked me to start the race as I was the only one with competition experience in karting. In short, we were the rookie team actually.
[KS] What karts and engines did the team run? How did the engines compare to the KFs being run by the other teams?
[EH] We were running on the Arrow karts and thus Team Arrow was the name of the team. Rotax was our choice although I have the TM KF2 engine with me being a choice, like I said we chose reliability over power for the endurance race. The KFs were fast but we ran at our own pace and managed along the way as it’s 4 hours, not 40mins.
[KS] After the middle and towards the end of the race, what was the state of the tires and engine?
[EH] I would say that the state of the harder compound tires used for the endurance race was pretty much alright (Surprisingly) and the engines were running fine too as we checked water level everytime we came back. The drivers were more worn out than the equipments if you have to make a comparison.
[KS] How exhausting was the race? Did you encounter physical challenges as the race wore on?
[EH] It was exhausting indeed despite the adrenalin pumping and on my last time out which I think it should be my fourth, I couldnt turn my head anymore after the 27th lap out as I was simply struggling to keep my head from swaying side to side. At that point, I knew I have no more energy to go out another round and fortunately it was less than 20 mins to go almost till the end. My lap times also dropped after 27th/28th laps out and couldnt maintain the same pace for the remaining 4-5 laps being 0.5/0.8 seconds off but I needed to hold on to avoid an additional driver change which would cost us more time. Although we had a gap with the team behind us, we wanted to be sure and not throw away the race at the crucial end as anything could happen in motor racing.
[KS] Did you enjoy the format of a day-into-twilight-into-night format? Were there any challenges as the sky darkened? Did the drivers wear clear visors throughout the race?
[EH] On normal practise days, we drove both during the day and in the night so there were no problems for us and it was not much of a challenge on the twilight format. Maybe I have very good eyesight so it was not an issue at all, we all had clear visors and my other team mates had a deflector at the top part of the visor for fear of glare from the lightings at night. However, I chose not to use that and just drove as it is.
[KS] Would you do another 4 hour marathon 125cc race again?
[EH] Well, I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t do another one again but running on 125cc engines for a 4 hours marathon race is really not easy as everyone’s lap times start to drop no matter how fast they could run on 10 laps. As far as I could recall on the timing board, all the fastest timings for all teams were clocked in the first half of the race and it’s really physically demanding. It’s not about who can go fast, it’s about who being able to last.
