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.
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