Merdeka Millenium Endurance Race '03 (56Kers caution)

[Shaun]

[Special thanks to Fongster and Team Falken for getting us pit access ]

Left Singapore early August 28th morning at 5am.

6:30am - Fongmeister's car was having some problems - unsure about whether to take the car up, but it got partially fixed at Stamford Tyres while waiting for the rest of the convoy guys to show up.



7:30am - Going up NS, rained initially, but kinda cleared. Overcast most of the way up. Eric was driving one of the least powered cars in the convoy, but always reached the next rest stop ahead of everyone else. GTR still having problems, running extremely rich. Later turns out to be blown turbo hose.



11am - Reach Sepang Circuit. Ryan's already torn between two fun cars...



Falken Team moves into pit, begins prepping the race car.



2pm - Walk down the pit row revealed many interesting Merdeka competitors. Lotus had a very strong showing with IIRC, 4 Elises and 1 340R. They also had a big team with a lot of young people. Perhaps they have a youth development team. Very cool. Around 5 GT3s, 2 Radicals, 1 Supra, 2 Honda DC5s, multiple EG and EK Civics and even more Proton Satrias. 4AG club had an AE86 entered in the race too. 2 Nissan Pulsars, 2 Corollas, 2 TVR Chimeras, 1 Evo 5, 2 Evo 6s, 1 Evo 7, Team Falken WRX, and more.



BSA - Corny slogan, but fast cars



Dennis Lian was one of the drivers on the green TVR



Alex Yoong too, on the Jaseri Racing team. Was fast in practice, but got T-boned at high speed by a Civic that lost its brakes. Both drivers ended up in hospital quite seriously hurt





Supra came in last of the O-classers. 74th place. Must've been tech problems because they were running ok at the start.



Gooseneck Elise - Coolest color and the coolest name



Team Petronas Nissan Pulsars (Open Class). Look pretty standard but ran very strong and consistent. Netting 7th and 8th place overall [out of 77 entries) in the race.



Radical SR3. BSA Radical ran considerably faster than this one - since it is of lower spec running 200cc less.







The winner of the event. Very fast and very loud - #17 Team Meritus GT3



Course the highlight for most was probably the Amprex M3 GT - rumoured to be GT+ since Merdeka O class is far less restrictive than JGTC GT300 class rules. Display of speed also supports idea that it is running way beyond 300hp. Side exhaust blows straight into the pit wall. Engine roar at WOT down the straights is awesome. Videos only manage to capture about 60% of the live effect.



Look at the size of the intake plenum (circled in red)! That's gotta be at least 8 litres of plenum volume.



CF piece at lower left rams air from kidney grille into intake plenum. Setup is ITBs.



Could not resist




29th August

Open practice in the morning, qualifying in the afternoon.





Night practice was cooler though. Made the cars look faster, when in fact the times showed that the average night time lap was around 4 seconds slower than the average day time practice lap. Sometimes as large as 7+ seconds - BSA Radical 2:16.192 day practice, 2:24.240 night practice.















Team Falken WRX rolling out into the night..









back into the pits after a good run...







Still awesome..





30th August - Raceday

Initially, fewer spectators than I thought there would be. Number would grow in the evening/night.





#26 DC5 that slowly and steadily worked its way up the ladder. Suspect good pit strategy in addition to good fuel economy and lightweight led to overall 3rd! Right behind in 4th was the cool Gooseneck Elise Both cars only Class A vehicles and drama free. Quite amazing that all these cars (including the two Petronas Pulsars) came in ahead of the Amprex M3 GT - which got 9th.





Competitors settled into a comfortable endurance pace, far below that of qualifying or practice.



Fong's all serious..





Lotus 340R, the only other Singaporean entry. Didn't fare too well though. 69th place.



Lisa Wong reported on the race, live for tv2. Indian guy off to the left looks infatuated with her



M3 during pitstop...



Team Falken waiting for pitstop...



Pit in



Soon enough night falls....





Naza Racing Team GT3 lost a chunk of body early on in the race, but ran strong to end in 2nd place.







Race ends with Team Falken in 11th position - ahead of both TVRs! A great result considering it is their first time running such a race and that the car wasn't really powerful or light. Coming years can only get better. Everyone is happy with the result. Race-end atmostphere was awesome.





Fong looking like a Son of Sam








Team Meritus GT3 completes 268 laps, beating previous year record by 5. Merdeka Millenium Endurance race is getting hot, with number of entrants growing every year. Suspect bigger players will come in with the intention of dominating the race. Will be tough though - the strategy is interesting. Add power, and even with a light car you'll burn up fuel, tires, and pads - requiring more frequent pits. Hard to beat Lotus cars in terms of weight. So then run a hybrid Exige? How large an engine and fuel tank can you stuff in there with cooling taken care of? If space is a problem do you resort to FI? If so heat management takes on a whole new meaning. Or do you run some kind of tube frame race car? What engine? How much power? How much fuel load? Power up and try to blaze by everyone and be ahead by enough to allow for all your pitstops to support all the power and hard driving? Or take it slow and minimize pit time?

Think MME is a really good for local motorsport. Organized race on a F1 track... 12 hours not too long, not too short, and class O has a nice low minimum weight, no bans on tube frames, ground effect, no power output caps. The sky's the limit.

Looks like for now the slightly modded GT3s have and have had the best package. Wonder what's going to come along and change that. Will be great to see more Singaporean teams joining. See you guys there next year.

[Azrielsc]

Damn it... should have gone!! Now where are the videos for me to replay over and over again?

The M3 looks awesome!! Wide body kit and kiss ass rims! Shaun, u have a higher res pic of that frontal shot, I wan to use that as my wallpaper!

And there should be more pics right?? Please tell me there are more!

[Shaun]

Vids will come later after some editing heheh. Quan kao Ryan!

What's your email address? I'll email the actual resolution M3-front pic along with other pics you want.

[ryan]

Originally Posted by Shaun

Vids will come later after some editing heheh. Quan kao Ryan!

What's your email address? I'll email the actual resolution M3-front pic along with other pics you want.

Sam just wants the photos of the Emprex girls and other babes which we agreed on keeping to ourselves.

Haha

eh, lemme have the tape
got idea!

[minx]

all i hv to ask is WHO IS THAT CUTE GUY IN THE SUPRA PIC?!?

below the Jaseri team pic and above the Gooseneck Elise one...

[Shaun]

That's Jack Torse Is that you in your avatar?

[Azrielsc]

Thanks Ryan for the M3 pic!! Now waiting for them videos!!

[minx]

Well, i do admit im like her on my horrible days (which is like erm...constantly!). guess you're too young to hv read Beano/Dandy comics otherwise you'd recognise her
she's my namesake. always up to no good.

Now tell me more about this Jack Torse . i hvnt seen any really gd eye candy in the car/racing circuit for a while, so gotta pardon me

[Shaun]

You can search on the internet for "J.Wright Competizione Supra" and see whether anything comes up.

[ryan]

heh i got a beano hardcover comic book, distro 1983

a little half eaten with silverfish but still good to read and..smell.

Originally Posted by minx

Well, i do admit im like her on my horrible days (which is like erm...constantly!). guess you're too young to hv read Beano/Dandy comics otherwise you'd recognise her
she's my namesake. always up to no good.

Now tell me more about this Jack Torse . i hvnt seen any really gd eye candy in the car/racing circuit for a while, so gotta pardon me