BRCW Wins GrassRacing AutoSports Autocross Round 2
Shah Alam, 24th July 2011 – The Subaru Imprezza popularly known as BRCW in some motoring circles (Big Red Chicken Wing) outshone the competition today to win first overall in the GRA Autocross Championship Series, Round 2 at the Shah Alam Stadium circuit today.
Previous round winner and championship leader Marcus Chye driving a super charged Louts Exige could only watch helplessly as Ivan Khong romped home with the advantage of 4WD on a very slippery track. In fact, Marcus was relegated to fifth overall as a result of him not being able to put all the engine power onto the road.
Apparently some other people conducting defensive driving courses had poured large quantities of oil onto the car park surface that was used for the autocross track and had neglected to clean it up. Many of the competitors were visibly upset as the oily surface not only made the going difficult, but it also posed a potential danger of their cars slipping off on the slippery surface. Said one irate competitor, “Whoever did this is really irresponsible – they should know that other people are also using this place for events, and should be spilling oil all over.”
Nevertheless, the GRA Autocross went along smoothly, with no driver winning the ‘Kylie Award’ – the Kylie Award is given to any driver unfortunate enough to hit a kerb or suffer any damage due to clipping the pavements or trees in the area – the first ever Kylie award was given to a Ms Kylie, who misjudged a corner and parked her car in a drain at the site.
Trailing Ivan home to second place was Andy Kow, who started as a rookie four years ago, and was the championship winner in 2008 and 2009. Third was William Lim, who drove his Suzuki Swift very skilfully, beating others in more powerful cars.
Fastest lady driver of the day was won by Charlene Khoo, who beat all the ladies in her little Kelisa automatic. The day’s event also saw the first time entry of Leona Chin, lady drift queen, who wanted to try out autocrossing, very quickly finding out that small cars with high agility are quite formidable in an autocross circuit. Anyway, the rest of the competitors are hoping that Leona keeps on coming.
Kenneth Koh, a second generation rally driver who took to the dark side following in his father’s footsteps, also turned up to check out what autocrossing was all about. Speaking to him a day before the event, he said, “My friend James Russell who used to rally with me, told me that autocrossing is fun, and the drivers here are very good. I want to try it out and see how I fare in autocross. It looks like fun.” I of course warned him not to be surprised if some little Kelisa ran circles around him, as some of the drivers have had many rounds of practice, and are very good at autocrossing. Autocrossing requires some very special skill sets that are different from rallying, such as pin point accuracy, and also being able to memorise a course.
Chiew Ruoh Peng showed up in a brand new Lotus Exige race car, and was very quick – however, he was still unfamiliar with the behaviour of the Lotus, and was still on this learning curve. The Lotus is not an easy car to drive, although when driven well, it is a formidable opponent. At the end of the day, even Ivan Khong, the winner of the day’s event found the Lotus quite a handful when he was offered a try out in one.
This event saw some colourful additions – the electronic timing equipment has been upgraded to wireless transmission, and the results can be downloaded to smart phones through a local Wi-Fi network set up at the track by Grassracing Autosports Sdn Bhd, the event organizers. Visitors to the event were also treated to a demo run by a Renault Megane RS Sport, driven by Ian Khong. In addition to this, there were the usual sponsor’s stands of Meguiar’s, Gophers, Eco Coats, Red Line Oils, Perma Glass, Van Li Autoparts, and Strawberry Fields who set up a food and drinks stall at the event venue.
