Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Not your average Sunday - Aug 09

Puasa or not, tracking still goes on! Went there on Saturday, 30th August, with my track buddy, Fahrein and James, another Subaru owner.

Luckily the weather was nice and not so hot. But since it's fasting month, there were not many attendees. Just nice number of cars. Probably around 50-60 cars only and for some reason, the most were Subaru Imprezas.

First outing, took it easy. Just warming up the tyres. But during this session met a TRD-liveried Vios on the track, on stock wheels but with a pair of serious looking racing shells. This car was obviously down on power, but was going round the corners so well. Doing 4 wheel drifts around T12 & T13. And impossibly late braking to T1. Impressive! My salute to the driver. Maybe a pro driver. Fahrein agreed with me.

After about 4-5 laps, went in to rest. I noticed that I was unable to really concentrate. Maybe due to puasa.

Then 2nd session, went out alone. Track clear with many other Subarus behind me who have left the pits at about the same time. Track was clear. I was watching this Myvi duelling with a Satria Neo around T2, with the Myvi's rear left wheel hanging in the air!

But when I was about to go round the off-camber T2, still going rather slowly, suddenly, BANG! And my car was sent into a 180 degree spin. I was hit from behind! During sighting lap!? All the cars went around me while I was facing the wrong way! Luckily it was a slow corner. Then slowly went back to the pits, expecting the worse, broken bumpers maybe? Broken diffusers? Bent mufflers?

Erk! I'm facing the wrong way!

Back in the pits, quickly checked my rear bumper. Nothing? Went round and then noticed a big dent above the rear left wheelarch. Mmmm... not so bad. That plus some scratches on the rear left wheel. Then went to find the group of cars behind me just now. Since we're sharing the same pit, so no problem. Surprisingly, his was much worse! Badly dented fender, cracked headlight, damaged bumper and torn wheel well cover. That'll be a few thousands ringgit to fix. Ouch!

The big dent on my car

His car was much worse! That's a limited editon Impreza S204 by the way

We however did not discuss about compensation or whose fault it was. It is an unwritten rule that one should not confront another party to claim for damages, unless willingly offered by the 'offender'. In this case, he was the offender since I was clearly in front, but he placed his car in my racing line, which at that time, I was already right up to the left kerb. Both of us were cool about it, exchange pats on the back and shook hands.

That incident more or less ruined my mood for the rest of the session. Subsequently, just made some more laps as practice session only. Didn't even bother to time myself. That was after Edmund helped me to pull out the hard wheel arch so it won't then ruin my tyres.

Now have to find time to fix this. *sigh* but tracking still goes on!