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Tamiya Asia Cup Finals, Day 3
Date: September 7, 2008.
Venue: 1 Utama shopping centre
Classes: Buggy, Tamiya M-chassis, Stock, GT
Organisers: Tamiya Underground
Qualifying heat 5 -
9.30am: I arrived at the venue, and found out I was up first, which meant I had a half hour to discharge, charge, submit my transmitter for impound,
get the control motor into buggy (10-screws with the DB-01, not including the pinion grub screw), get the battery back in the buggy,
pick up the transmitter and transponder and get the transponder in. When the last screw was done, the battery was up to 1200mah charge, and
the race had started.
This was our last qualifying heat before going into the finals. I was quite happy with my 12-lap effort in the last qualifying heat
(I had been doing only 10 laps previous to that), but it still put me firmly into the bottom half of the C-main.
I had no delusions of my chances of sneaking into the B-main, so I was taking it easy for this heat - a bit too easy as it turned out.
I was about 2 laps behind everyone when I started, so this was just going to be a practice round for me.
The buggy behaved itself but my early morning driving was nowhere near what it was when I did my 12-lap effort. I had no idea how I did.
10.30am: A friend got back from results board and asked me what happened. Apparently, I was disqualified for my tires. I knew it meant my
front tires were too worn out to be legal for this race. I went back to check with the car inspector and he put what appeared to be the cut out
cross-section of a mineral water bottle over my tires and it went quite deep over the front tires. No worries.
I warned my teammates about tire wear and glued up a new set for my C-main.
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Tires too worn. Disqualified! |
A main 1 -
I got the camera out for some photos. Every country had their "team marshals" spread around the track to ensure their
buggies got flipped back on their wheels promptly. Between these and the official marshalls, there were no shortage of heads around the
big ramp areas. I'd never seen this serious side of racing before. Phumporn Pramuksun from Thailand had drove a strong race from pole
position to take finish 1st. Korean racers Choi Hong-Ryul and Kim Eul-Yong came in 2nd and third respectively.
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B main 1 -
Tony Neo from Singapore finished 1st, showing the importance of consistent driving. Lee Tea-Hee was 2nd and
Jeff Tsoi Chung Wing came in third.
C-main (1 and only) -
My teammate Lay Keong started 2nd on the grid while I was in 5th. I did a mental calculation and I only had to average about 20 seconds for each
lap to put in 12 laps in 4-minutes, so I was focusing on keeping the buggy on its wheels as much as possible.
This was the main for group C, so this was the result that counted - the culmination of a season's racing, if you will. As the buzzer went off and I
rolled into the first corner, I realised something was wrong with the buggy. It was understeering tremendously with the new tires.
I knew that I would be off the pace, but still wanted a decent run, so I resigned myself to driving it like a RWD, letting the other buggies through
when they came up, and passing them when they crashed. And then I crashed - a bad landing after the big jump. The buggy had been extremely durable
so far, but I guess after 3 days, it had had enough of my driving and spewed forth a grand display of suspension parts onto the track.
The turn marshall gave me the signal that the buggy was beyond trackside repair, so that was it for me.
Then I saw some of our Malaysian teammates picking up parts so I hoped for a moment that they were going to attempt to repair it, so I ran back
onto the drivers stand and then saw they were fixing Lay Keong's car which had also fallen to pieces near mine. There was a bit of confusion as to
what went where, but in the end, both buggies were beyond repair. Lay Keong had a popped universal driveshaft, I had a rear arm ripped out from the
arm mounts.
When I returned the transmitter for impound and the buggy for inspection formalities, I found a small consolation.
Most of the bits of my buggy had been recovered along with most of the parts I'd been losing the previous two days (including the missing
dogbone and the mysterious disappearing body clips), as if the track had decided to end its prank on me.
No idea who won. Wasn't the least bit interested to visit the results board.
I knew me and Lay Keong were bottom of the last group, that's for sure.
As always, we hung on to the belief that we'd get some good luck in the lucky draw to make up for our bad luck on the track.
Today, we figured we'd win the grand and 2nd prize for sure.
Update: Okay I just got over the disapointment and looked it up. Jygs Tianco was first, Hans Sugiyanto was 2nd and Allan Colico 3rd.
Looks like Sakorn Torpongpunth from Thailand also crashed out of the race early. What rotten luck. Kim Ji-Sik, a Korean boy with a
noisy DF-03, chose this final race to break the 12-lap barrier and come in a respectable 4th.
A-main 2 -
Phumporn finished 1st again for the overall win. Wu Fuk Chuen was 2nd and Choi Hong-Ryul came in third.
B main 2 -
Tony Neo and Lee Tea-Hee was 1st and 2nd again, respectively. Budiono Tjiptodihardjo from Indonesia came third.
Overall results were Tony 1st, Tea-Hee 2nd and Budi 3rd.
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A-main 3 -
Phumporn sat out, so everyone was bumped up 1 spot on the grid. Shem from Malaysia, starting from 4th now, took the round while
teammate Rosaidi came in 2nd. Third place went to Wu Fuk Chuen.
Buggy A Group Overall Results -
1 Phumporn Pramuksun
2 Shem
3 Hong-Ryul, Choi
4 Wu Fuk Chuen
5 Rosaidi
6 Eul-Yong, Kim
7 Azman Azam
8 Alain Laham
9 Norazam
10 Terence Ang Teck Wee
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Other classes A finalists:
Stock Overall Results -
1 Allister Lim
2 Lam Tze Fung
3 Cheug Kwai Lun
4 Leung Seng Chung
5 Chua Wee Long
6 Mail
7 Chen, Jui-Hao
8 Anton Ramos
9 Steven Cheah
10 Xavier Low Zhong Hon
M-chassis overall results -
1 Perry, Leung Ka Kui
2 Wu Chak Ming
3 Park Young Hun
4 Leonard Sim
5 Hong-Sik, Min
6 Shiu, Sheng-Shiang
7 Byung-Hwan, Kim
8 Noppadol Rerkngam
9 Goh Kee Choon
10 Wong Wing Hung
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I wasn't paying much attention to other classes but heard that the notice for motor max RPM was upped from 18,000 rpm for the Lightly-tuned motor (M-chassis class) to 18,500 RPM within a short period of time. This was mind-boggling for many M-chassis drivers who found their motors doing nowhere near even 17,000 RPM (mostly on the Team Much More motor checker). So the word around the track is that there was a motor out there going above 18K which the organisers were accomodating. |
Tim K from rc-mini.net has a good report on the M-chassis class here.
GT Overall Results -
1 Ho-Wing Fai
2 Chiang Wen-Ping
3 Dong Woo, Nam
4 Kelvin Kh'ng
5 James Tang
6 Krits Premprasert
7 Tan Soong Hock
8 Joseph Salcedo
9 Michael Lo
10 Chattham Promnog
The Team Phillipines car of Joseph Salcedo came to the track with tire-warmers, which is the norm for this class. However, when they were removed during one of the mains, the team mechanic was shocked to find that the paper towels had stuck to the tires. Four guys quickly crowded around the little car to attempt cleaning the tires. It looked like a scene out of F-1 racing.
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Official results and prize giving.
Spoke to a Korean driver, Choi Hong-Ryul, after the race. He told us about the buggy scene in Korea, which was popular. He was a clearly a Tamiya fan. He wasn't sponsored but had TRF501X and a TRF416. His DB-01 was only built when he got to Malaysia. He qualified for the finals just driving a DF-03 in Korea. Most of the DF-03's we've been seeing came from Korea where the tracks had twisty infields, but they sadly ended up in the slower groups as they were ill-suited to the big track.
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We milled around for an hour or so waiting for the results. The word was out that the buggy TQ and A1 and A2 winner, Phumporn neglected to marshal, so it was expected that his best A-main result would not be counted. In the end, this was not enforced. |
Our team leader decided he would forgo his trophy as a protest. With this, we all turned to Shem, who would have been overall Asian champion, had the turn-marshaling rules been stricter. He decided to forgo his trophy and substantial 2nd place prize as well. With that, the Malaysian team left the prize giving ceremony, and the season ended on a sour note. There was a free dinner (which some drivers had been saving a stomache for, not the least our Muslim friends who fast throughout the month of Ramadan) and lucky draw prizes, which of course would have been too weird for us to attend.
As I write this, I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. On one hand, Phumporn was clearly the fastest driver today and it was very likely a genuine oversight on his part. On the other hand, I strongly believe races should not have bendy rules and this belief was compounded by three days of adhering to rules about body shell holes, paint and tire wear. At that moment, all I knew was I was getting a sore throat and a runny nose from 3 days of inhaling carpet dust, traction compound, tire glue and motor spray (plus a bit of nitro fumes from the 801X demos) and I just wanted to be home with my wife and son, whom I sorely missed.
As we walked away from the track, Lay Keong chuckled, "I thought we were going to win the lucky draw grand and 2nd prize?"
I laughed, "Ah, I didn't like our odds anyway. With our luck, we'd wait up all night for some tape and a few body clips."
| Some pics from the final day. |
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Here are some Youtube videos of the A-finals uploaded by Eddie Low and RC Evolution:
Buggy A-main 1
Buggy A-main 2
Buggy A-main 3
Stock A-main 1
Stock A-main 2
Stock A-main 3
M-chassis A-main 1
M-chassis A-main 2
M-chassis A-main 3
GT A-main 1
GT A-main 2
GT A-main 3
Thanks to everyone that put in the effort for this event. It has to be said that there's room for improvement regarding rules.