And for the 9th year, we had the Merdeka Millenium Endurance Race at Sepang last night. Being a motorsport fan, made my way there last night to watch the closing stages of the race, with a friend, Fahrein. Since the race was scheduled to end at 11:45PM, so we just planned to reach there at about 9:00PM. No rush.
When we get there, well the crowd is not exactly F1-crowded. But quite a number of enthusiasts were there. Some even with their families along. Great to see that.
What a visual feast on the track! Quite a number of race prepped Porsches are taking part this time. And a few beautiful Aston Martins. Not to mention the various Honda Integra DC5s, Civic FD2Rs, a lone Mitsu Evo 9. And then the ubiqutous Honda EGs, EKs, Satrias, etc.. It was quite a race as well.
When I reached there, the cars had already spent more than 9 hours pounding around the track. And these guys were not exactly taking it lightly! They were at the absolute limit laps after laps after laps! It's really amusing to see each and every car's brake discs to glow into bright red circle at the end of the back straight, at every single lap. That just show how hard these guys were pushing, themselves and the car. I thought only F1 cars have those glowing brakes, but I was wrong.
And then, the aural excitement. I'm not sure of others, but the sound of properly tuned race engines are just like music to my ears. We had the muted scream of highly tuned 4 cylinder N/A engines. Then the deep burble of the Holden and Ford V8s. That was really amusing, adn different. Then the angry bark of the Aston Martin V8 and then the loud scream of the Porsche flat six. Amazing. But the winner in the aural dept to my ears is the high pitch wail of the BMW Z4Ms of the Petronas Syntium team. Sheer pleasure. Sounded almost like an F1 engine. I kid you not! All these cannot be differentiated by watching on TV. As they all sounded the same when recorded. That's why it's still better to be there.
The race eventually was won by Porsche Club Singapore, racing the Porsche 997 RSR. Beating last year's champion, Kencana Petroleum team, also running Porsche 997 RSR. In fact all podium finisher in the Open class were running Porsche RSRs. These were just other-worldly fast around the circuit. Made all the other cars look slow. Including the Aston Martins and the Holden/Ford. Their only match I think was the Z4Ms, but not quite.
But also kudos to team Proton R3 who won Class B with their Satria Neo. A surprise to us, and I believe to many others. In fact, all podium for Class B was won by Proton runners! Amazing.
Next year, it'll be a 24 hours race instead. Can't wait till next year.
Not sure if you can hear this, but here it is anyway. Passing at the front straight.
After the race
The winner
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