I am a Taiwan national and I have been living in Thailand since 12.
I arrived Kuala Lumpur today. I am staying here for a week for my sister's wedding. Damn I can see one of the famous twin tower from the bathroom here.
Before I get into the motorsport topic I want to talk one thing. I was at the customs. I hold a Taiwan passport so I lined up at the part with the sign "Foreign Passport". There were people in front of me, and the area marked Malaysian passport was all empty. I noticed a Malaysian (Muslim I guess because of the head wrap) customs lady opened up the belt fence in the middle of the line, a few meters in front of me, telling others to go to the Malaysian Passport area. I followed the line and before I crossed over, I noticed that "Malaysian Passport" sign. I therefore paused and asked her, "is this for Malaysian passport or foreign passport?" My intention was to make sure I don't cross over by mistake and I asked with politeness. She paused literally 3 seconds without reply. I was thinking, "maybe she couldn't understand English." Then she came back with a very harsh tone and became very rude. She said, "I open the line, you don't want to come over, that's your problem." Right after that she closed the belt fence. I was furious and I became loud, "so that's your normal attitude towards visitors???"
Let me know WTF went wrong here. She was the first Malay I met and you can see how this destroyed my holiday mood, and how I feel about Malays in general now. I came here for vacation not take shit from others. Other Malays were good tho. Other than that, I got to say your country has great sights, good roads, and the city of Kuala Lumpur is just beautiful. Where I come from, Bangkok, I can get stuck in traffic for 1.5-2 hrs one way into the city, and another amount of time on the way home. And huge amount of people (almost half the GDP/capita compare to Malaysians) commute on little 50cc-150cc bikes, cheap pick-ups. I hardly see one motorcycle here.
Now the motorsport stuff. You have Sepang and you can see F1 and MotoGP....I am jealous about that
We have a few circuits but mostly short ones (2.4km roughly), yet very technical. The longest being street circuit racing once a year at the sea side city of Bangsaen, that's a high speed one like Macau Grand Prix circuit. A lot of crashes, hehehe.I started motorsport 3 years ago, on 750cc and later liter bikes. After several crashes, the last one put me into hospital I wasn't able to ride for a year, and sold all my liter bikes due to the danger and the "pain" involved. September last year I met this Taiwan friend who made himself a fortune from car & car parts imports and race tunning. It was him who got me into car racing.
I started to built my 1993 EG hatch from scratch Oct 2009. 1st mod was a JDM D15B, then parts ordered came and added onto the car slowly. I usually practice my driving at Bira (www.bira.co.th). My first lap time was 1:35+ Now I lap it at 1:12.7 sec with second hand BF Goodrich slicks (it was yesterday and my first time with slicks), which put me automatically at top 5 in my division base on historical records. With 2 more weeks to go for my main event, (Super 1500 open class division C by Suercar Thailand) I hope to do another practice when I am back to Thailand. I want to shave another 0.5 sec to make sure I am invincible in my class. I also attend smaller events for practice and the fun. I tried 6 hr endurance back in Feb, 3 drivers rotate on one rental car.
My EG needs 3 more things. a larger final gear for better acceleration (stock 4.25's useless at short tracks, 4.4 should do the job), a very long header for high rpm torque/hp, and an oil cooler because when I abuse the car at the track oil temp climbs to 125 celcius.
Do Malaysians track or race often? Do you have touring car series in your country? What is the motorsports scene here, except the F1 and MotoGP?
When I say racing I am talking about cars with roll cage, engine tuned to almost going to explode (NA, not turbo), and chassis torsional stiffness strengthened with welding and all rubber bushings under-chassis links are spherical bearing for best steering response, running negative camber at 2.5 degrees, etc. Cars with small displacement engines but laps corners faster than sports car due to able to pull in excess of 1.2g mid corner.
Someday, I am going to ship my car here, and have fun at Sepang. A Singaporean friend hosted a track day for his customers a while back. He rented the circuit for half a day and that Taiwan friend of mine flew to Singapore to act as track tutor (he's also my master and the main reason I could go fast at such a short time). Once the fleet left that island, it raced to Sepang at speed of 180km/h on your highways, ha.
I have some vids I like to share with you. in youtube search golferchin76. There should be 4 vids you see. Watch "Veteran champion driver attack technical Bira circuit" It had become a bible for new Thai racers to learn how to attack Bira, driven by dual annual 1500 cc class champion yr 2009 season. 2nd vid I recommend is "Race trim EG JDM D15B race practice session", my lousy
attemp to attack Bira back in Jan. Last one is "Nitto 3K Standing start part 2.wmv " My most recent short 8 laps race which I spun out twice at the end. I still have to upload more vids. I will post a notice once uploads are done.
Any constructive comments on my driving are welcome and appreciated in advance.
Thanks and pray I will have the opportuinty to drive on Sepang for the fun someday. It is very very far from Bangkok.
Have an excellent day.
Chin
