Malaysian Drift Challenge: Round 1!

Lil' Miss Muffet and all her KE70's in a row

Last 8th and 9th Nov, we were treated to a drift spectacle over at the Elite Highway MORAC track for the first round of this year’s Malaysia Drift Challenge, one of the two standards in which local drifters are judged and ranked. Besides the usual suspects who took part, the event was also judged by the nation’s most familiar judges, Ariff Johanis from Sync Optima and Loyai from Feinto-D. Commentating for the event was Wanbra, with his witty and sometimes outright darn funny comments on the drifters and their techniques.

On Day One, it started off quite late as the track was closed for a prior private event featuring MORAC’s own speedy two-stroke carts. As the drifters piled into the pitlanes, it was almost 2pm before the driver’s briefing.

All in favour of moving *so-and-so* to the Expert category, say aye!

Yes, it was then when the consistent winners of past drift events were pulled up to the Expert category, leaving only 14 contestants in the Novice group. For those who were upgraded, congrats! *hehe*

A short tour around the pitlane yielded interesting shots, although being a drift event noob, I did not snap more images of the participants, conserving my battery for the evening runs. Here are some shots during the Day One pitwalk;

The shocking thing was that most of the competitors did not bother running their machines with an air filter! Achieving the maximum horsepower possible was probably the general consensus, although I wouldn’t even dare doing it if I had a track-going car!

Some of the drifting action during the afternoon; the track’s layout was simple, but the total lack of experience on this track for most of the drivers led to some interesting events later in the afternoon.

Falken AE86 doing its thing! This car belongs to Zul from Ipoh!

Old-school sideways action

Rudy doing some drifting as one of the marshalls during the event

I can go ga-ga over this panda anyday!

The first victim was a car from Maju Jaya - Datsun 1207 chassis' are tough!

Mervyn with his new sponsor, running Federal 595-SS and more 595s on the rear. He was definitely the smokiest during both days!

Lok Sifu's car - Ariff loves him for putting the pedal to the metal everytime he drifts. His engine sounds heavenly too!

Jane laying down some smoke during her runs.

Harizad's mean S13.

Ryuk1d in his Proton Saga Coupe

REVERSE DIRT DROP YO!

This KE70 has a nice exterior

Indonesia's sole entrant. Some say he has the power to move his car using his mind. And that he had little difficulty in practice. All we know is, he has some good handbrake skills!

Another big accident; Car 12 attained serious damage and did not return for the next day

Another AE86 bites the dust

Cone-eating time!

More reverse dirt-drops!

Ryuk1d bites the dust

ANOTHER AE86 gets into the barriers.....

Day Two saw a narrowed field; with a few competitors not turning up while some cars that were damaged the practice session the day before could not be repaired in time for the event.

Ah boy's car with damage during the practice session the day before

At the driver's briefing

Some of us were still worn out from the night before

Last minute tyre-loading courtesy of the Federal guys.

Now you see; now you don't. Harizad losing an intercooler when his car flipped during the morning practice. Thank god his team got his car running in time for the qualifiers

More doriya action from the KE70 guys

Tan Tat Wei powering out from the hairpin. Too bad he lost in the Tsuiso battles

Mazdaspeed Zoom Zoom! Courtesy of Jack Ee

Wanbra and the judges

Tangerine Orange S13. Juicy...

The eventual winner, Ivan Lau with beautiful angle and speed into the hairpin

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QzcMTjwoU]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QzcMTjwoU]

All’s great for an event that saw bucketloads of rainfall during the second half of the day; just right before the tsuiso rounds! Of course, many drifters failed to quickly change their driving styles as it happened at such a suddence, but we did see some really close battles in the Expert category with near misses and even minor fender-benders. What an exciting way to end an exciting style of going round a circuit! See you guys next time!