Grass Racing Autosports Autocross Championship 2007 Round 1
Shah Alam, 3 June 2007 – Grass Racing Autosports started off its Autocross Championship 2007 with a great event held at the Shah Alam Stadium today. A total of 90 vehicles entered the grassroots level competition, and the normally quiet stadium car park reverberated to the sounds of screaming engines, screeching tyres, and the air was filled with the smell of burnt rubber as the competitors drove their hearts out to get the fastest times in their respective classes.
With the timely entry of BF Goodrich as the main sponsors, supported by Redline and Meguiars’, Grass Racing Autosports (GRA) was able to launch the autocross season at last. “We really appreciate the contributions by BF Goodrich, Redline and Meguiars’ because, as you know, it takes quite a bit of resources to put a championship series together,” said Ian Khong, Clerk-of-Course for the event.
The format of the event has changed a little from the previous season. This time , there is an additional category for ‘automatic’ transmissions, to cater for those who own these types of cars, but want to compete as well. “After all, this is grass roots motorsports – you come to race in the car you drive to work,” said Low Jian Nin, co-owner and CEO of Grass Racing Autosports. “We have a large community of enthusiasts, and a very active forum on our website www.grassracingautosports.com, and it is our members who requested that we start this new automatic transmission cars category. We believe that we are the only motorsport organizer who has done this, and we believe that it is only a matter of time before others follow suit,” Ms Low added. For this event, a total of five entries were in the automatic category.
In addition, the competitors are split into two categories for this season. “We have a very large entry list, and it is logical to separate the entries into the two categories as we have done. The novices are now all grouped into a separate category, while the experienced drivers will have the chance to battle it out. There is less waiting time for the competitors in this format, a move that was welcomed by most of the participants.
The novice category was run in the morning session while the ‘expert’ category was run in the afternoon.
The event was graced by the presence of Peter Hansen, CEO of MAM (Motorsports Association of Malaysia) who came to observe the event, as this was the first event to be held after the launch of MAM, the new governing body for motorsport in Malaysia, last week. “This autocross championship is really the level that we must support, because this is where our future Malaysian racing and rally drivers will emerge from,” said Peter Hansen. “We will definitely continue giving assistance and support in any way possible,” he went on.
The track for today was a high speed course, with fewer turns and slaloms, which favoured the more powerful cars. However, there were three ‘roundabouts that were quite ‘tight’, and not only did they serve to slow the cars down at critical places, skill was required to get around them as quickly as possible.
In the expert category, known as ‘Pro-Grass Class’ Hisham Jahudi set the fastest time of the day with a combined time of 129.49 seconds over three best times out of five timed runs. He took part in a Lotus Elise, bored out from the original 1600 cc to 1800. Sharing the car with Hisham was Marcus Chye, who came in second fastest at 130.16 seconds. Third was Dominic Ang who clocked 132.88 seconds. Ivan Khong had some handling problems with his Subaru, and only managed fourth with a time of 135.00 seconds. Close behind in fifth was Mickey Teoh in a MR2 Turbo who was one tenth of a second slower at 135.01 seconds. In sixth place was Christopher Chin in a Honda Civic V-Tec, and Soo Sing Kuan was seventh in another Civic. The final points winning position was taken by Julian Pang.
