Tamiya Asia Cup Malaysian Qualifying Round 2, 2008
Date: April 27, 2008.
Venue: South City Plaza
Classes: Buggy, Tamiya M-chassis, Stock, GT
Organisers: Tamiya Underground
This is the second of five qualifying rounds. As I wasn't actively following what was happening with the other classes, I'm only going to be talking about the buggy class from my perspective, mostly focusing on the new buggy that I was driving for the first time. I was torn between driving the DF-03 again and driving my new DB-01. I only just finished building the DB-01 the night before and had very few spares, but in the end, that's what I decided to run. At least I remembered to bring a charger this time.
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The track. |
Qualifying 1 -
Since I only finished building the buggy the night before, this would be a practice run for me.
Took a leisurely drive to finish 18 laps, with a fastest lap of 13.86 seconds. Fastest guy was Norazam with 24 laps.
I really liked the way the buggy jumped and responded to throttle input in the air.
Qualifying 2 -
Tried to push for a better result and kept making mistakes. Only managed 17 laps with a fastest lap of 13.5 seconds.
Azman and Zahari both DNF, I snuck in at 6th position.
Qualifying 3 -
Very good run for me. 20 laps, with a fastest of 13.14, but still finished 7th.
Would probably have been 8th but Monty went home early as he was really having no fun trying to survive the jumps with his DF-03.
A-main 1 -
I start 7th on the grid. Fastest lap is up to 12.84, but finished 19 laps only. Position stayed at 7th.
A-main 2 -
Did another 20 laps with a fastest of 12.91, which is almost 1 second slower than the fastest times of the two guys ahead of me. 7th again.
Also, starting to feel the buggy is slow off the starting block. Suspected the slipper was not tight enough.
A-main 3 -
As I was driving the buggy to the starting grid, I noticed it was even slower than before. I realised that the battery was dying on me.
It was too late to do anything so I just ran it as it was. On my last couple of laps, I was really struggling to keep the buggy chugging along but
I still had enough steam to make it over the big jump, which really means the jumps could have been put much further apart. I did another 19 laps
with a fastest time of 13.06.
My final position - 7th. Norazam emerged champion with Azman 2nd and Zahari 3rd.
I'm very happy with the DB-01 so far. Nothing on it broke apart from the front hex hubs and that was only because I overtightened the wheel nuts. To their credit, the hexes stayed in place and was functioning perfectly even though they were broken. For the next race, I shall be pushing the buggy a little harder and running it lower to the ground.
| Some pics from race day. |
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Special thanks to Max for carrying the baby and Bulldog for looking after him and my wife for all her support.
