Ford Lynx Clinches 2ND Overall Despite Problems
Headline : Ford Lynx Clinches 2ND Overall Despite Problems
The 2nd Round of the Silverstone Tarmac Rally Series 2003 was flagged off in Kluang Johor in their National Stadium on 14th July 2003, and was run over two days on closed trunk roads and paved estate roads in and around the Kluang area.
Coming back to this southern town after the inaugural round last year, the Silverstone Tarmac Rally gave the townsfolk a rare treat of fast cars, vivid colours, and high speed action. A field of 16 cars traveled from all over Malaysia to congregate at Kluang for the event. Amongst them were 4WD turbocharged cars, Protons, and some very fast turbo Kancils. Ian Khong, making his first appearance this year, entered a Ford Lynx Turbo. Khong missed the first round in Taiping earlier in the season due to work commitments.
Ivan Khong and Gary Lee took the Lynx to a credible 3rd Overall in round 1. For this round, Ian Khong took on rookie Ivan Ng as his co-driver.
In only its 2nd year of rallying for the Ford Lynx Racing Team, the team is making a tremendous impact with its striking colors and is a major crowd puller to the event. At every rest halt, the crowds throng the service area to go ga-ga over the cars, and the sight of the seemingly sedate Lynx in its race colours stirs up exciting images of what one can do to ones own car.
Up to now, the ever dominating Mitsubishi Evos with their powerful 4WD systems and turbocharged engines have seemed to be unbeatable, but this time, the Ford Team gave the more powerful cars a run for their money, clocking 6 FTDS (fastest time of the day) out of 10 special stages. Considering that it is only of 2WD configuration, this feat is incredible. Asked about his superb performance, Khong attributed it to the narrow and twisty nature of the course in which driver skill and the handling characteristics of the car play a more important part than raw straight-line power.
In 1997, Ian Khong did the same thing in a stock standard 1.6 rally car, beating many more powerful 4Wd cars to take first overall placing. In that particular event, the ground conditions were atrocious, with deep, slippery mud, making the course into a huge mud hole.
Comments by Ian: –
“On Saturday, the car was going well, and we clocked 2nd fastest time for the 1st stage, just 2 seconds behind the EVO6 of Sunthar Saminathan. However in SS2, our car started to misfire. This delayed us, and dropped us down to 16th position and last. Fortunately, that was the last stage for the day, and our crew managed to sort out the car before the day ended. We started SS3 on Sunday morning with vengeance, sharing FTD with a Satria converted to 4WD EVO specs.
We managed to claw our way up the rankings, clocking FTD’s in SS4, SS5, and SS6, making up for the deficit we suffered in SS2, to trail the leader by 21 seconds. We hit speeds up to 230 km/h on some of the stretches and drove like there was no tomorrow to do it. In fact, at the end of SS 6 & SS7, the brakes were smoking and in flames when the car came to a halt.
We flew over some very narrow wooden bridges; we are not quite sure, but we think some of the planks were not there! The trees seem to get closer as you go faster, but the car handled superbly.
Then in SS7, we passed the leader and for the first time ever, a Ford Lynx led the rally. With only 2 stages left to go, victory was near. However, in SS9 & 10 the car suffered misfiring problems again and we crawled out in 2nd gear. Our lead of 29 seconds was lost, and we finished 2nd overall. This is the best finish so far.
One of our most frightening moments was in SS3, where there was a short straight leading to a bridge without railings. The bridge was on a blind crest; all we had to rely on was our notes, which said to set the car slightly to the left as we ‘yumped’. You lift off, and just hope you land on the bridge, and not in the stream eight feet below.
The car felt great, it stuck on the road like rails, and the Lynx really demonstrated its ability against the more powerful cars. Thanks to Ford for their support.”
