GRA Round 4 & 5 2011

For those of you who don't know what Grass Racing Autosports or GRA is, well it's Malaysia's National Autocross Series. Event coordinators Ian Khong and Jian Nin have been running this series since 2004 where the first ever round was held in an empty car park lot just beside Suria KLCC twin towers, needless to say that the parking lot is not there anymore. But when a group of car and driving enthusiasts decided that the car scene needed something Ian quickly decided that it would be possible to have one, the rest is history.

Fast forward 6 years later and GRA is now the only sanctioned Autocross Series in Malaysia. But what really makes GRA special is that everyone who takes part is treated as being part of a community that takes care of each other. For the last few rounds my Subaru has been showing signs of wear & tear and she finally gave up on the 4th round just before the start of the event, to make things even worst I was in the championship so getting every point possible was extremely important. Now without a car I definitely wouldn't be able to take part.

Being in a community means that everyone knows one another and so I had to ask a favor form some of the other competitors to loan me their precious car to me. For Round 4, Victor who drives an Evo7 kindly provided me with a drive, it was my first time driving an Lancer Evolution in a competition. But I must say that Evo's are pretty damn fast when it come to outright power on the straights, so I managed to finish 2nd in Class and 6th Overall in the championship.

 

After hearing that Suby won't be ready for the next round I once again asked the community through facebook this time for assistance. So for round 5 was the last round for the 2011 season I managed to get 3 different cars to take part. The first car I drove was Christopher's MX5, once again I must say that it's my first time driving the car in a competitive drive and it was one lovely drive indeed!. A pure joy to drive the MX5 maybe because it goes sideways so easily but with full control.

 

The second car was from Dixon who is a new owner of a Subaru Impreza, I must say that I was kinda impressed with the power that the engine churned out at high revs, absolutely insane boost. It's almost as though the car wants to kill me!! LoL.

Finally I decided to jump into Victor's Evo7 once again to make up some time and to better my position. This time around Victor managed to fine tune his handling and I'm glad he made some changes, the car was absolutely a breeze to drive as compared to the previous round. I managed to finish 2nd in Class and 3rd Overall for the final round of the year.

That's how close the GRA community is. I'm glad that now only are we all competitors but we all can learn and share at the same time. I would like to say a BIG BIG THANK YOU to Christopher, Dixon and Victor for loaning me their cars to take part in GRA. Thanks a million Guys!!! Also a Thank You to the organizers Ian and Jian Nin for giving us all an opportunity to play around with our toys :)

  Hope to see you guys in 2012.

R.I.P Marco Simoncelli

2nd death in motorsports...a very sad month.

Rest well Marco Simoncelli

R.I.P Dan Wheldon

Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel....

...at age 24 his is now the youngest back to back Double World Champion in Formula 1.

Goodbye Steve...

Quote from Steve :

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” [2005]

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [2005]

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” [2005]

To me Steve was a great public speaker. Through his many many Apple Key Note speeches I picked up a little from him to learn to be a better public speaker myself. His legacy will not be forgotten but I will always remember him as a great speaker.

Rest well Steve Jobs.

Amazing Dubstep Dancing Video

I just had to share this. Excellent dancer.

GRA Championship Round 3 2011

In car video of me.

R.I.P Colin McRae

Colin, it's that time again when I watch a video of you it give me goosebumps, seeing you drive is mesmerizing. You're on of the reasons I got into competition driving. I hope you're showing all your skills up there wherever you are. For when I prepare for any event, I think of you for inspiration.

"if in doubt, flat out" - Colin McRae.

We're Engaged!!!

we're engaged :) ...and she said..."Finally!!"

Alot of people will and are asking how did I propose? I will post it sometime in the future :)

Shell Helix Ferrari GT5 Time Attack Challenge

I found this competition online through Facebook. Though I'd try it out and I managed to finish 5th overall in the finals.

Grass Racing Autosports (GRA) Championship 2011 - Round 2

Finished 2nd in Calss & 2nd Overall.

Ninja Joe Pork Burgers - Officially the best burgers in M'sia!

If you've never heard of Ninja Joe, then you'd best head that way, but only if you're okay with Non-Halal food. Why? because they are the only commercial store that serves pork burgers in the country! We lucky people know what that means, tasty burgers with little complication. When I say little, well I mean they are small in size and yes you may need 2 burgers to fill up your hunger. But they also serve normal sized burgers too named, Big Boss and Brucely.

GSC Gold Class 3D Movie Experience @ Signature The Gardens

Well there's a first time for everything, sweetie and me decided to catch Pirates Of The Caribbean : On Stranger Tides before it stops running at the cinema. I'll start by reviewing GSC Gold Class and at first glance I was blown away by the premium price!! Ticket price rm45 + surcharge rm20 = rm65 for 1 movie ticket but if you're catching a 3D movie + 3D surcharge rm5 = rm70 per ticket :O

So you know that you won't really watch every movie in Gold Class. So what do you get for that premium price? As you step into the waiting area a concierge will guide you through and take your order for complementary drink at the bar. The waiting area is pretty nice, with plenty of tables and seats to wait. Another nice touch is that the people working there greet you with a smile which shows good customer service :) Plus the food and drinks came very very fast, pretty impressive.

Inside the cinema there are total of 20 seats surrounded with Dolby Digital speakers and an IMAX Digital Projector for a High Definition (HD) experience and that's what it's all about. HD projectors are suppose to be flawless with non of the grainy scenes that you see in the std. cinema projectors. The 3D glasses are really nice but I don't wear glasses so the weight really bothered me a little, but holding it up solves that issue, although I thought the glasses could have been lighter.

Overall I'd say our 1st experience was great! Hope that the service will be consistent when we come back :)

WRC - VW Returns in 2013

Here's an interesting update in the world of Rallying, Volkswagen has announced that they will be taking part in the 2013 WRC season, with a Polo. Yup it's going to be a 1.6L turbo charged 4 wheel drive Polo competing against Citroen, Ford and Mini. Latest photos show what the car will look like and I must say it looks lovely! Check out the video below.

V8 Supercars 2011 - Perth

One of the most spectacular crashes straight from the get go in Perth. Good thing is that both drivers got out of this accident without serious injury.

To Dream Theater's New Drummer Mike Mangini...

Congratulations to you for becoming the next Dream Theater drummer. I watched the drum auditions and thought that you had the most energy from all the drummers who did auditioned.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about you should check out the band Dream Theater if you are into Progressive Metal. In September 2010 ex-drummer Mike Portnoy announced his departure from the band after being part of the ensemble for 25 years. To Mike Portnoy, I wish you all the best in all your new projects in the future.

What's a metal band without a drummer right? So Dream Theater decided to invite 7 of the best drummers from around the world to audition for them, catch the videos below, check them out.

Check out his audition in Episode 1

Find out more about Mike Mangini.

Congratulations!!!! once again Mike!!

Hanging out with the Countryman

It's been a while since I've had a proper blog post. Due to my laziness to post on the blog is one of the main reasons for my lack of contribution here. Well I've been pretty busy with work and stuff at home that every time I want to post for my blog I get writer's block! Heck I'll do my best to post more often for myself and Zoey on her blog.

So what have I been up to? I'm now running events with the team in Orcavie, based in Petaling Jaya. Been running around getting things done for each project that goes our way. Lately I've been involved with the new Mini Countryman and believe me when I say it isn't very Mini anymore, but I kinda like it. Took some upper management people out for a pre-launch drive on the twisty Semenyih roads, then another drive for their internal sales team to Tg. Jara which took roughly 5+ hours with one lunch stop in Kuantan. But overall an interesting drive, although I didn't get to drive the Countryman much except to the car wash and to refuel, I still enjoyed my time in the BMW 320i Sport. Next up was the official launch of the Countryman at the KTM Station in KL, this was a huge project with lots of planning, thanks to the experience of the Orca team we managed to pull off a smooth event. Most interesting thing that I did was drive the car from the train onto the platform with Joey G commentating, getting to the waiting zone where the train waited was quite an experience too. I've never really been on one of the trains before and that too was quite interesting as I got to relax in the First Class coach while waiting for everything to take place. Here's a video from the press launch :

Joey G & Me

That's it for now.

Team Lotus F1 on the streets of Putrajaya

Got a call and was asked to showcase what Autocross is about. Basically preform a demo at the event. All this in conjunction with the F1 race coming up next weekend. The main highlight was the F1 cars driven on the streets.

Happy Birthday - Kurt Cobain

The Social Network

Alot of buzz surrounding this movie. But I didn't know about it untill I got an email through NIN.com, when they launched the movie's soundtrack with a free 5-track sample download. Music was dark, very dark, but I expected nothing less from Trent Reznor. I'm sure everyone knows what Facebook is and this movie is about Time's Man Of The Year 2010 : Mark Zuckerberg and how he created the social internet phenomenon Facebook.

Inception

I was quite busy when the movie was showing in the cinema, but finally I managed to catch this awesome movie. I've always liked movies that challenge the mind and gravity :) and with this movie it made you think alot. If you haven't watched it yet, please do.

2011

Wishing all my friends and family

Happy New Year!!!