D24: Rally.Drift.Touge.Kart

Super Special at APRC Johor 2011

2011-04-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

After a long 4 months break, we're back again & this time around we have a new weapon. We're competing in a Neo Mivec fully prepared by MRU Motorsport. Modification includes close ratio box with 1-way LSD & Drummonds suspension, both flown in from Aussie, and many more.

This is my second time driving the car, the first being sending the car to scrutineering as I needed to get acquainted with the car, the seating position & the controls, the gear ratio, suspension behavior (though tarmac & gravel is hell different) and the much smaller brakes (I've been using Alcon all this while).

We took this first drive as a shakedown & were very surprised of how comfortable (says OBK) and easy this car is to drive compared to the older Satria.

Last but not least, we would like to thank everyone who have made this possible, especially MRU Motorsports, Q8, Torco, Recharge drink, Alpinestars, WSM and many-many individuals who have supported us.

So here goes our onboard video for the super special stage @ APRC/MRC Round 1, Angsana Complex Johor.

Relax, sit back & enjoy

The Legendary Rally Machine: Nissan 240RS

2010-12-20T07:03:00.000-08:00

I'm always fascinated by rally machines. To me, they are one of the toughest road going machines in the world.. Just look at how the cars withstand the constant huge jump of Rally Finland, and how they constantly protect the drivers from massive crashes.. it gives me the feeling that rally cars are invincible.. It'll be my preferred means of transport, in the event of zombie outbreak..lol..

Being a huge rally fan, i am hoping that one day i'll be able to see classic rally cars like Lancia Delta Integrale, or Lancia Stratoses on the road, or better still, in a rally.. It never cross my mind that one day, i'll be able to see a legendary rally car, which is even rarer than the 2 cars that i mentioned earlier.. To put it into perspective, there are about 492 units of Stratos produced by Lancia; the car that i saw has only 200 units produced and it's said that there are less than 20 units known left in the world. The car in question is non other than Nissan 240RS

Steve Irwin: "What a beau-ty!"

I stumbled upon this beauty at MRU motorsports about 2 months ago. It belongs to veteran Malaysian Rally driver, Mr Chew Tee Wong. Mr Chew had sent this beautiful piece of machinery to MRU motorsports workshop for maintenance checks and fixes. He was preparing this car for the Berjaya Hill climb, which was held on 30th October 2010. Mr Chew isn't the first owner of the car, no. He bought the car from another veteran rally driver who got this car from Tan Chong (Malaysia's official Nissan car distributor) as a token of appreciation for his achievement rallying for Nissan. Nope, this car is not a replica converted from S110, it is actually a Group B works car from Nissan. There are only 2-3 units brought in to Malaysia, and i would believe that this is the only one left here.

Look at 'em mean arches, i reckon it can store KGs of gravel in SS

The Nissan 240RS was initially created by Nissan in 1982 to compete in Group B of the World Rally Championship. 200 units were produced by Nissan for the FIA Group B homologation. The 240RS is based on the Silvia body, equipped with an FJ24-type 2.4L DOHC straight-4 sporting a custom cylinder block and crankshaft. Various body parts were reinforced: the bonet, boot lid, over-arches and more were all made with fibreglass-reinforced plastic and all windows except the front were exchanged with polycarbonate, lowering the weight to 100kg under that of the stock Silvia RS. Output was nearly doubled to 237 bhp. (Facts are borrowed from Gran Turismo GT)

Boxy looking ass.. spank it and u'll suffer the consequences

However, Nissan's bid for the 240RS to be competitive in Group B WRC is not a story of success. In the 1983 Safari Rally, Nissan's work team entered the 240RS Group B, aiming to win four championships, only to find that it was dampen by engine troubles. Moreover rival machines were all evolution models. Nissan eventually managed to create an evolution model for 240RS, but it was too late. Group B has moved on to 4wd turbo monsters.

Despite all that, the 240RS has its taste of victory as well. It finished 2nd in the 1983 New Zealand Rally.

The 240RS in its WRC glory

I'll let the pictures do the talking now. Enjoy the shots taken using our camera phone.. If time allows it, we'll post videos of us cranking the engine as well.. ;) Until then, please enjoy the pictures..

..Look at all the old skool meters..

..Simple, nice, and purposeful..

..the fuel cell is located inside the boot compartment rather than undercarriage..
..the fuel system uses anti-slosh foam instead of a surge tank..

..check out the reinforced rear axle..designed to take on the harsh rally environment..

..the powerplant is running on dry sump system..

MRC 2010 Round 3 Terengganu - Tasik Kenyir Super Special Stage

2010-11-10T06:33:00.000-08:00

Here's our onboard video for the tarmac super special stage @ MRC Round 3, Tasik Kenyir.
Sit back and enjoy the video!

DIY: SOL visor installation

2010-10-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

So recently, team D24 upgraded themselves from rental kart to another type of rental kart, I mean from 80cc to 100cc karts. It's not really a big leap considering ONLY 20cc difference but that's actually 25% increment of engine displacement on basically a same chassis & same weight. That is something I tell you.

That's not my point really. My point is that I've been using either helmet from the kart operator and other times I would bring my own Spongebob which is an open face.... as if you can't tell from the picture.

There's nothing wrong when you look at it. The problem comes when you floor the throttle while going down the main straight of City Kart Shah Alam going at approx 70-80kph. At this speed, there's like a small turbulence going on behind the helmet visor. At long duration, the wind effect really dries up my eye & later it makes me cry ....literally. I would find myself wiping tear drops like I've just pulled out a perfect drift.

So I told myself, I need to buy a full face for future session. And later I asked myself, why buy when I've already got my rally helmet?! And this is where this blog entry would start LOL

Materials that you need:

1) SOL off road helmet

2) Visor of choice; mine is HYBRID-37X FACE SHIELD CLEAR IRIDIUM RECOMMENDED PRICE RM60 ....direct copy from packaging, pretty long name

3) 40 cents ... LOL

Step 1: Screw them screw

Ok, now you should use 20 cents to unscrew that screw. What about the balance of 20 cents you asked? Use it on the other side :P

Step 2; Lift 'em up

Simply lift up the dirt shade like so

Step 3: Release the release

You'll need to push the release downward & lift up the dirt shade at the same time.

Step 4: Be gentle

Once both sides are off the latch, just pull out the dirt shade from the pivot gently

Step 5: Do it backward

Repeat the steps above in reverse & opposite ....ok, I know you're lazy to read them backward ....but so am I LOL

Once both sides are on the latch, just push in the visor into the pivot gently

You don't need to push the release downward & lift up the dirt shade at the same time.

Simply push down the visor like so

Keep your 40 cents

Camwhore

I'll give feedback to you guys later on how this visor should help me concentrate on attacking the course again. Nah, I'm just kidding, with this cool look, I'm not bothered about that anymore. BTW, on the left is OBK's helmet with Paddle Pop finish.

Thanks SOL for the awesome looking visors (and helmets)!

DIY: Pacenotes

2010-08-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

"Pacenotes.. ahh.. what a boring subject..i mean, who cares bout pacenotes right? It's just some random bits of scribble which the co-driver used to nag the driver while the driver's doing the hard work of driving.."

WRONG!!

The fact is, pacenotes is one of the most important part in rallying. Look at 6 times WRC world champion Sebastien Loeb for example, his notes is so detail, he can practically drive with his eyes closed! Having good pacenotes enables the driver to push more confidently in the Special Stages (SS)..

For today's post, i'm not going to talk about pacenotes, but rather, how to DIY your own pacenote book.. While it might not directly affect the driver's performance in the rally, having a proper pacenote book will help in making your rally experience easier..

Step 1: Gather the materials

- A4 size paper (100gsm at least.. makes flipping easier..)
- 2 thick A4 size card board (makes a good base for your pacenotes.. else the notes will seem flimsy..)
- Garden wire
- Wire cutter
- Broom stick
- Spray paint

Step 2: Prepare the notes and cover

- Since i'm a junior in pacenote writing, i've devised a template for each sheet.. it makes my life easier coz it help me organize the space on each page better.. it makes my notes neater too.. Besides that, at the top of each page, there are columns for Stage information such as Special Stage (SS) name, SS length, as well as page number/total of pages. It is important to note the page count so that you won't mixed the pages by accident.
- To get the template on the paper, i used a photocopier.. coz it's much cheaper and much faster.. (plus there's a copier in my company.. hehe.. i hope no one from my company reads this..)
- After preparing the templates, it's time to send the notes and the hard cover for binding.. if you have access to round shaped binding machine, then it'll be great.. else like me, you can bind it using the normal square binding.. (also available in my company.. kekekeke.. )

Step 3: Making spring

- The technique that we'll using for the binding is coil binding. The reason why this type of binding is chosen is because it has the ability to open flat on a desk and offer 360 degree rotation for easy note taking and flipping.
- The spring/coil making part is the toughest part of all.. the reason is simple: first you need to get wire with proper thickness for this; 2ndly, you need to estimate the length of the wire to use.. it depends on the size of the ring and the number of binding holes you have; 3rdly, it's very hard to judge the distance between 2 holes.. in my case, what i did was to roughly estimate the length, and the distance between the holes.. then after it's done, i'll adjust it according during the test fitting session.. :D..
- To summarize the whole process in 4 steps, you need to:
#1, Cut the wire accordingly.
#2, Roll it on a broom stick with a rough estimate on the gap.
#3, Test fit the spring with the prepared notes, and adjust accordingly
#4, Cut off excessive wire..
- Size of wire? Hot co-driver Christy Goh recommended bigger rings to make flipping easier, and thicker wire so that it won't go out of shape during SS.. i find her advise very useful.. :D

Step 4: Test fitting

- Test fitting is simple.. All you need to do is the spin the spring through the binding holes on your notes.. The spinning direction is either clockwise or counter clockwise depending on the direction of your spring.. But one advice though, please make sure to align your notes properly before binding to make it easier..

Step 5: Spray the momma

- But before you spray the momma, you need to sand-paper the sharp edge.. this is to prevent the razor sharp edge from cutting and hurting you..
- After the sharp edge is smoothed, you can start spraying the spring with your favorite color.. This is to keep the spring from getting rusty after being exposed to the harsh rally condition..

Step 6: Assemble the parts

- Putting everything together: the hard cover, the notes, the spring, to make sure that it fits and flips properly..

Step 7: Zhng your pacenotes with stickers

- Just for the extra ego boost..

The benefits of this pacenotes DIY:
- Being able to arrange the notes after recce.. By doing so you can group notes for consecutive SS together in one book..
- Note: Remember to wrap the edge of the wire with tapes.. This is important to keep the sharp edge from hurting you during the stages..

Well, that's all folks.. enjoy your DIY and Zhng-ed pacenotes..

Rally of Bahau, Round 2 of MRC2010

2010-08-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Bandar Seri Jempol - Karamjit Singh wrapped up the Malaysian Rally Round 2 title at Bandar Seri Jempol in convincing style today ...........Scratch that, that sounds way too formal to be coming out from me. It's almost like reading that straight out of the paper (it is LOL)

So how was our rally you asked? It was awesome! The sport just keeps on getting better & better.

As usual, we tried to start the preparation way ahead of the competition and AS USUAL, we didn't try hard enough LOL. Anyhow, it seemed like there's always not enough time, we did however managed to get the rear pair of absorbers as well as a pair of brake calipers serviced. And on top of that, the 'drifter' in of me requested for the car to be setup to have a mild understeer & a neutral tail for a change.

FF drift yo!

And there we were at Bahau a day earlier for the recce (to make pace note). We did alright I guess but this is our first recce without a water 'boey' (Andy Boey) LOL. The joke didn't end there. We actually got pulled over by cops when we stopped for lunch break just outside a warong (food stall by the road)! The cops weren't aware that the rally was in town & thought we looked suspicious coz we drove ultra dirty & muddy car. We had to explain for ourself that we just came out of the estate mah, of course it'll be 'muddy'. They bought our story but only after they did a search off our trunk!

How the cops caught us

"Francis, we have a problem". This is something that I have to get used to. Balan (hamsapian) came to me & said that one of the brakes is leaking at the seal. We had to make a trip back to the workshop in KL to get the service kit. It was ultra exhausting driving with poor visibility coz it rained cat shit & dog shit, & most of the journey was on trunk road :(

We survived that. And then, it's the first day of rally. Safety & remember to have fun, this has always been D24's strategy, not so much of a strategy huh and away we go. The car felt really good, so we went flat out (FYI our flatout is others 1/2 throttle) straight away. Unintentionally, we even flew at a crest which was marked as 'flat crest' (it means go flat out over crest), only to find ourself gasping for air & searching for balls somewhere behind the lower abs later. Yet again, we learned something here, that recce speed is NOT the same as rally speed! We changed that to 'do not flat crest' afterward.

Flat over crest

Do you know that Bahau rally has tonnes of ruts?! So much that I had to grab hold of the steering very tightly or we would veered off course. So much groping or grabbing that my fingers get cramped at every last SS before every service. Damn, I didn't take Eido-san's lesson too well about my steering technique. I'll explain more on this next time.

Fluffy steering

Both OBK & I are slowly getting up to speed. I'm trying to understand more of the gravel tire by trying sorts of technique to find the traction. I'm getting more sense of grip at low speed but still hesitate at the faster stuff. We tried to stay more in the power band this time, somewhere between 3-5k rpm, though we still lack of power when some others are hitting well over 7k rpm.

Borrowed from Yoong :P

At the navigation department meanwhile, OBK had to call much faster this time around when things happen a lot quicker. We covered 30 (metres) faster than OBK can say it. This meant that OBK had to call things much earlier & I had to stack more notes in my head too.

We came back for a final service on Day 1 with a broken rear camber arm. The bolt broke right off the chassis for doing too much sideways. And we thought that the car dialed in too much angle due to lighter fuel load at the end of the day. The crew worked effortlessly to weld the bugger back into place but they couldn't finish the job as we only had a 40 mins window. They had to spot weld to keep it in place before finishing the job on the 1st service in the next day.

Broken camber arm :(

We would then start Day 2 at an awesome 5th overall, 1st 2wd & 1st 1600cc. Its our first time starting at such position & its really really awkward I must say to start just behind the 4WDs. We were leading with the next car for about 55s but were later cut short by 10s coz we left the service late to get the rear arm done.

Little that we know, we lost another precious minute when the car failed to rev smoothly at the first SS of Day 2. We couldn't get the rev past 4k rpm & had to shift up early so as not to waste more time limping at 4k rpm. I had to constantly kick the clutch (refer to image on how to do that) as the rev took ages to climb. We didn't have the faintest idea that it's the plug fault until Karam told us so at the start of the third SS where we had a slightly longer interval time. I managed to minimize the damage by accelerating smoothly & cutting more corners to avoid dropping more speed. Sounds like technique taken off Initial D geh

This is how you should kick the clutch

We went back for midday service with the front lower arms bent & I guess we can blame it on the ruts. We got them replaced but came out with steering pull hard right. No time for alignment. We rejoined the rally under a gloomy sky and heavy rain. We almost went into a ditch before a bridge at SS11, but thanks to quick reaction with the ebrek & then power out to pull us out of harms way.

We brought the car back safely and finished at 5th overall, 2nd 2wd & 1st 1600cc class! Its almost the same result as APRC Johor but this time, we worked really hard for this, and boy did that feel great!

We would like to use this opportunity to thank our sponsors, MRU Motorsports, Asahi Chassis & Suspension, Universal Nutribeverage, SOL Helmet, Q8 Oils. And of course everyone else who had supported us along the way, you know who you are!

And hey, here is a compilation of video taken from our onboard camera, do watch till the end for a super finish www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_T4n0RYWcg

In this month issue of Pro-Tuners ...

2010-07-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

Lets see if I can remember how it happened. Okay, so there is this one day when I got a private message from Soon, he's the editor of pro-tuners magazine. Soon asked if we're interested to be featured in their magazine, well, we could need a help to gain some fame here, so yeah, why not right? So a few more private messages, couple hundreds of pictures taken by Eddie & weeks of waiting, finally it's out! Expect to see two articles about us, one being pro-tuners' very first article of a rally car and a get-to-know-more-about-D24. Just in case you couldn't find the latter, it's after the page containing lotsa skimpy shoots of Cheryl Lee :). Special thanks to Soon & Eddy again for featuring us! And guys, go get yourself a copy!

DIY: Rally Helmet with Intercom

2010-07-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

As we progressed further in the program, the competition became more fierce and the road condition were getting .... more interesting. The roads were now longer and with just 2 allowed passes (recce), it's not easy to memorize the entire road. We knew communication will be crucial to keep us ahead of others and more importantly, to keep the car on the road. We had to do something.

As we blogged before, pacenotes is an important tool to notify the driver what is coming ahead. All this while, I (Keng) found no issue hearing notes delivered by OBK. Of course he can, the exhaust doesn't make apparent noise, the road is smooth & the suspension is comfortable, basically, we weren't rallying. When we moved to gravel surface, all we could hear was gravels hitting the undercarriage of the car, I would go like, "notes? what notes?". We were desperate for intercom!

Later, some team invested on pricey rally intercom set (point finger at team Sparken hehe), some got themselves motorbike intercom set and some even went as far as communicating via cellphone with hands free kit. As for us, we opt for the motorbike intercom set too but they didn't perform that well as there was just 1 earphone for each of us and the microphone picked up noises other than OBK's too! We were very much dying for a better intercom but we needed to keep the budget at minimal, so I put my DIY skills to work and came up with this ...read on

Materials that you need:

1) Helmet (Old AGV, cost Rm70 if I remember correctly)

2) Headphone with 3.5" male jack (Rm19 from LowYat)

3) Heatshrink (Less than Rm2/ft from Jln Pasar)

4) Cable ties (Dunno how much they cost as I got them from my toolbox)

5) Wires for extension (Leftover from my car project)

6) Bike intercom with 3.5" female jack (got this from ebay for less than rm70 plus shipping)

Tools that you need:

1) Hot glue gun + hot glue

2) Wire cutter

3) Pen knife

4) Scissors

5) Solder gun + flux

6) Philip screwdriver for dismantling the headphone

7) Power drill for drilling hole for the mic boom wire or

8) Small flathead screwdriver if you don't have a power drill

Step 1: Where should the headphone go?

Most crash helmet comes with a detachable ear padding for easy cleaning. If yours doesn't, skip this part & go to step #2 yo. Now remove the ear padding. Mine had a velcro to keep it in place.

Step 2: Make that hole bigger

This is an underskirt shot of where the (ear) padding used to sit. All you have to do next is to make the hole larger so that there is enough room for the earphone. You don't want it to be 'ketat', or do you? Rule of thumb I got from my wiring experience, measure twice, cut once!

Step 3: Strip 'em

You'll need a "circumaural" type of headphone as this completely surrounds the ear & seal them from external noise, perfect for rally! The model that I bought was actually 3 bucks more expensive than a model which had no striking red color cover behind the earphone. Soon I realized it's not needed, crap.

Remove the ear muff (hehe) and loosen the screws to detach the headphone from the main assembly.

Step 4: Connectoooo...

At the back, you'll find 2 wires connected to the speaker. You need to unsolder them as the wire connecting the left and right speaker goes through the main loop, or you can choose to cut them but you'll need to connect them back later. DON'T cut it, solder is cleaner!

Now measure if the wires (left to right speaker) are long enough, you'll need to tuck these wires underneath the padding of the helmet later. Remember to use heatshrink if you need to increase the wires length, they look nicer & they provide extra grip so that the solder doesn't come apart. Don't solder the MICROPHONE just yet!

Step 5: The ear muff

Secure the speaker phone to the ear padding that we took out in step #1. Hot glue will come in handy here. And you can even use the screws that were originally used to hold the speaker to the main assembly.

Step 6: Mic check....1..2 ...1..2

Drill a hole right behind the ear padding for the microphone wire to go through. You can use the same hole to mount the mic boom onto the helmet.

Step 7: Final assembly

Secure all the connections properly. I didn't prepare a wiring diagram beforehand, all you gotta do is just put them back together like how they were before you took them apart.

Step 8: Taa-daa

There you go, rally intercom helmet!

Now from here, you've several option on how to zhng your rally helmet. And this is what I did LOL. I'll show you how to do them in the future!

We're blogged again ...

2010-05-02T01:27:00.000-07:00

This time our close friend cum MRU official photographer Andy did the blogging & I must say, he made us look great!

http://sidewaysobsession.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/d24-zero-to-hero/

Taking a break after APRC

2010-04-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry that we didn't update the blog for weeks as we had to compete in the APRC event.

We'll be back with lots of pics but here's something we got for you guys from the rally, our onboard video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGOmQhFNz0o

Harry Hockley Spec ...

2010-04-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

Being one of the main sponsors for the famous TV reality show Zero2Hero, R3 of Proton were kind enough to provide these amazing rally-spec Satrias for the rally training. As someone who have personally driven this machine, I dare to say that they're surprisingly quite easy to drive, but before that, we got quite a lot of 'scolding' LOL.

I have to admit that my past experiences of fooling around in my faithful university transit did help me to drive front-wheel driven cars (FF) sideways on gravels, but rallying with FF, damn, it's whole new level. First & foremost, I had to kill my habit of letting the rear end lose out at maximum angle. Then I had to use my left foot to brake instead of just kicking the clutch LOL. I'll explain more about the rally driving technique in the future. Here are the specifications of the rally car that we used for training for close to 2 months :)

PROTON SATRIA RALLY CAR BASIC INFO

BODY

FIA roll cage

Light weight bodyshell

Extra spot weld straight from factory

POWERTRAIN

1.6 SOHC (Mild race camshaft)

Standard bottom end

Custom air box system

Harry Hockley ECU

Harry Hockley wiring loom

Standard transmission (Originally with close ratio dog box and LSD)

SUSPENSION

Bilstein rally damper

Rally-spec springs

Rally-spec hard suspension bush all round

Rally-spec suspension top mount

BRAKE SYSTEM

Tilton twin brake pump non servo

Tilton brake bias in board controller

Hydraulic handbrake

ALCON 4 pot front brake & 295mm disc

ALCON 2 pot rear brake & 280mm disc

Competition high temperature brake pads

Brake line relocated to inboard

FUEL SYSTEM

Standard fuel tank

Standard fuel pump

Fuel line relocated to inboard

STEERING SYSTEM

Standard steering rack with 2.0 lock to lock

Sparco steering wheel

Power steering assist

INTERIOR

MOTORDRIVE Racing seat

TRS 5-points harness

Navigator foot rest

LIFELINE build in fire extinguisher electrical triggered

LIFELINE hand helds fire extinguisher

Quick release spare tire harness

We're blogged ...

2010-04-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

TheAutoIndustries blogged about us! Do check out his nice entry here at http://www.theautoindustrieblog.com/2010/04/zero2hero-malaysias-next-rally-champion.html

First time entrant is the pair of ...

2010-04-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Malaysian Rally 2010 or MR 10 scheduled for April 23-25 in Kota Tinggi, Johor has attracted a total of 22 entries and among them is Malaysia's leading light in rally driving, Karamjit Singh.

Together with co-driver Jagdev Singh, the 48-year old Karamjit, the 2002 Production World Rally Champion, has entered the fray under the GSR Penzoil Racing team in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X.

Karamjit's team is in the fight for the two championship which will be raced simultaenously, the Asia Pacific Rally Championship(APRC) with Malaysia as the first of the seven stops and the four-leg Malaysian Rally Championship which Karamjit is a ten-time winner.

He will be the man to beat especially in the fight for the Malaysian Rally Championship now that his arch rival Saladin Mazlan of the Felda Rally Team has not confirmed his participation so far.

Also in the race is Alister McRae, the younger brother of the late Colin McRae, the former World Rally Champion who died in a aircrash in 2005, and he will have Australian Bill Hayes as his co-driver behind the wheels of a Proton Satria Neo S2000.

The Malaysian leg of the APRC 2010 has attracted 10 entries and Muhamamad Rafiq Udhaya with Sean Gregory by his side will be making their debut in the championship behind a Subaru Impreza.

The defending APRC champion Cody Crocker and Ben Atkinson from Australia has since retired from the sport but the younger brother of Ben, Chris will take up the challenge instead with his Belgian partner Stephane Prevot in a Proton Satria Neo S2000.

Japan has provided the largest number of foreign entries with five entrants and the most prominent among them is the experienced Katsu Taguchi of the MRF Tyres Team in his Mitsubishi Lancer Exo X.

The race for the Malaysian Rally Championship crown will be just as exciting as the fight to emerge from the long shadows of Team Karamjit, takes shape.

Muhammad Rafiq of the MRU Motorsports looks formidable after all the experience he has collected in the local circuit since he made his debut in rallying five years ago.

A total of 12 entries have been confirmed so far in the Malaysian Rally Championship and a first time entrant is the pair of Francis Lai and Ong Boon Keat behind a Peugeot 206.

Source http://www.malaysianrally.com/2010/aprc2010/press.asp

Provisional start list of APRC Johor

http://www.malaysianrally.com/2010/aprc2010/document/PROV_ENTRY_LIST_mr10.pdf

Pace notes explained ...

2010-03-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

You must be wondering how on earth can the rally drivers drive so blardy fast in the twisty winding road not knowing what's waiting for them behind that blind corner. Actually, they do know what's coming up ahead of them, in fact, in extreme details. These details are called PACE NOTES.

Pace notes are written in tight shorthand notes during a recce & are delivered by the co-driver to the driver during the rally. There are a lot of "standards" being practiced coz there aren't actually 1 specific standard. In general, pace notes are either numbering or describing system. If you've played Richard Burns Rally (RBR), you'll find the describing system rather familiar with corners being labelled as FAST, KAY, MEDIUM, and such.

As for us, D24 decided to go for the Colin Mcrae Pacenotes System (CMS), a numbering system. Lets just say its not entirely pure CMS, as we had to alter some notes to make us more comfortable & to minimize our reaction time towards a note when its called out. Here is a portion from D24 pace notes from Rally Of Domain, the training ground for Z2H students.

Pace notes called by OBK:

Start, 50, 5 left and 2 right minus into 2 left plus long, and 2 right plus opens, 70, 5 left into 4 right over crest

Translation by Keng:

Start, drive 50 meters into a fast fifth gear left-hand corner, then immediately keep left for slow second gear right-hand corner in half throttle. Then accelerate into a slow second gear left-hand corner, immediately changing direction into a second gear right-hand corner that opens into a straight. Accelerate flat out before lift-off throttle for a fifth gear left-hand corner. Then brake slightly for a forth gear right hand corner over a crest

OBK must make sure that he is in sync with Keng when reading these notes to him to avoid miscommunication which could lead to disaster. As cliche as it may sound, practice makes perfect team, both OBK & Keng spent countless of hours to practice & develop teamwork trying to achieve flawless syncing. So they say, without a good pace notes, the driver will only be able to drive at 80% of his pace!

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacenotes

D24 @ APRC 2009 - Day 1

2010-03-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

Ever since graduation, there hasn't been much activities for D24 members due to work commitments. Hanging out together is tough, let alone having a road trip. So when the producer told us that we'll be going to Johor Bahru to be part of Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC), Keng and OBK were practically jumping for joy! Finally, D24's hope for a road trip is here, and what makes it even better is the fact that this trip is not just an ordinary trip coz we'll be watching APRC live in front of our own eyes! This has been something that Keng and OBK had always wanted to do.

Finally, the much awaited day has arrived. At the strike of midnite, Keng arrived in his ~~carriage~~ car at Cyberjaya Petronas station. After freshening up at the station, we started on our 400km journey down south.. where the excitement awaits us..

After some long and painful hours (obk managed to stay awake, thanks to ginger sweets), we finally reach the tol booth. After paying tol, Keng whipped out a road tulip for directions, created by Alan and Masri. The tulip is precisely crafted, and without much issue, we've reached our destinatation - Hotel Aromas.
We were dead tired the moment we reached the hotel. So, we've decided to 'get' a room and rest for a couple of hours before the big day.

They asked us to take the stairs :(

We woke up 2 hours later feeling ultra cranky due to lack of sleep. We quickly clean ourselves up, packed our PSPs into the backpack, had breakfast and proceed to the meeting point that morning -- The Zon Hotel, JB

Upon reaching at the meeting room & registered ourselves, we were given new T Shirts and also an identification tag for the exciting weekend. Not long after that, we were ushered into a big lecture hall (reminds us of the uni days) where we were briefed bout the 1st activity of the day -- the media challenge.

But first, before the challenge, it's lecture time, yeah, same as uni days. We were lucky enough to have APRC event's PR director Ms. Diane Barton as our mentor for the media challenge. This interesting lecture mainly teaches us public relation as well as ways to handle the media during an interview.

After the lecture, they split us into 5 groups. Fortunately enough, both of us landed in the same group. Each group were given a name as well as a scenario for the media challenge, we were named Magic Ad, and each member of the group is tasked to play a role in the challenge, namely they were: the rally driver, the co driver, the team manager, and the medias. Our scenario is pretty simple, the driver had been caught in a road bully situation a couple of days ago; after the race, the media asked for his comment on the situation.

The breakdown of the group are as followed: Keng will be the driver, JJ (J.O. rally team) will be the co driver, Alan (AMM) will be the team manager, while OBK, Jimmy, and Kumar will be the members of the medias.

The challange is evaluated not only by Ms Diane Barton, the organizer of WRC Australia 09, Mr Chris Carr was present as well.

The challenge went on rather well I would say, however there was a tensed moment when Keng was stoned by one question from Mr Chris Carr. Luckily Alan was there to rescue.

After the challenge, we were given a break. We took the time to roam around The Zon shopping center to search for cheap Puma racing shoes. After some searching, we finally found it! However there are no sizes available for us :(

As we were walking towards the hotel lobby, we were thrilled when we saw the new Proton Satria Neo S2000 rally car parked right in front of the hotel. It look so freaking awesome! We were thinking how nice it would be if we can get a taxi ride in that car driven by our hero Mr. Karamjit Singh.

After the break, we were ushered again into a hall, where we would witness the Media Session for APRC drivers. We were ultra excited to meet the drivers and co drivers of the APRC championship, namely Cody Crocker, Emma Gilmour, Taguchi, Karamjit, and many more.

After the media session, we stayed back for the MRC driver's briefing, where we were later introduced to our rally team for the weekend, NK-SS rally team. We will be working as the service crew for the team during the MRC round. The husband and wife team - Clayton Check and Tracy Li came all the way from Hong Kong to participate in this MRC round. They were surprised when we talked to them in Cantonese, which is the native language of Hong Kong. We were told to meet a guy named Suresh at the service park the next day. Keng and OBK are looking forward to assist the team the next day.

Night fell, we gathered at Zon hotel outdoor carpark, where we will be witnessing the Opening Ceremony of APRC Johor Bahru for the first time. All the competitors' car were parked at the ceremonial area. It's such a good sight to see so many rally cars and such a huge crowd gathered to see the event. As soon as the Guest of Honour (TMJ) arrived, the ceremonial start begun. One by one the competitors drove their car up the ramp and is flagged off by the TMJ. Deep inside, Keng and OBK hoped that next year, it'll be their turn in action.

Look at those cars..

After the ceremony, we went for a drink and headed back to the hotel soon after that. We were kind of nervous about the next day, and hoped it'll be a great day working as service crew for the 1st time.

Group picture with Faidzal Alang

Durians with Mr Karamjit Singh

Durians with Emma Gilmour

Durians with Cody Crocker

Oh ya, we found Cody Crocker's recce car at the zon hotel carpark. Look at the labelling on the dashboard..they were for pace notes!

Our first drive

2010-02-23T23:38:00.000-08:00

In this week, we were given theory lessons by Najmi where most of the lessons materials that he used were from advance driving course. We learned how to identify different types of dangers on the road bla bla bla. Anyway, we don't want to bore you by telling you all that coz its DRIVING TIME!

During the driving lesson, we learned manoeuvres such as doing S thru a slalom, acceleration sense, and others that you'd find in advance driving course. Once we have completed all the course, we were challenged with a combination of all the manoeuvres that we learned.

5-step parking

The combination consists of these steps, hence the 5-step parking name:

step 1: From stationary position, we have to go through a series of cones lined up as slalom and coming to a stop

step 2: Go through the same slalom, in reverse & into a parking space

step 3: Come out of the parking space & side park into a different parking space

step 4: Exit from the parking space & park into a different parking space, front in

step 5: Exit out of the parking space, make 2 hair pin turns & finally into a parking space, all while in reverse!

These 5-steps is a compulsory driving test required by the cops in the UK. Keng did a pretty good time of 1:11s, which is equivalent to the record time made by some anonymous cop. The nearest competitor that day came close to Keng's was 4s slower :). We got a 3rd placing for this earning 6 valuable points.

Lane changing & cadence braking

This was fun. We were told to do medium speed lane changing in a 2 lane wide road, it's tight I tell you. A lot of guys had close call with the curb when they spun out from doing the lane changing. The other technique was cadence braking ala manual ABS. The steps to execute this are:

Travel to about 70 kph (Keng went up to 100kph),
Lock the brakes (remember to clutch in and slam the momma!)
Steer away from danger while the brakes are still locked; the car will still be going straight at this point
Release the brake; this will steer the car away from danger
Lock the brakes again; this is to slow down the car

These are emergency procedures to avoid obstacle for a car without ABS assistance, if your has ABS equipped, just press the brake as hard as you can & steer the car away from danger. Let the ABS do it's work.

Back to school ..

2010-02-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

It has been almost 5 years since both the D24's members have graduated. Now, picking up the pen & reading book shouldn't be that hard right? It is .... because our lecturers/tutors did not teach us these ..

Pace note

Simulation challenge

So in that very first morning is when everything gets back to the basic, we're all learners now. Together with 15 other teams, we met up at AAM Motorsports to attend our first class. We warmed up our seats & were then briefed by Faidzil Alang from FA Racing about rallying. Little that we know, he had a surprise for us, our very first challenge to fight for points, simulation challenge on Ps2: WRC! Obk snuggles & said, "hehehe, I've played that game before" but sadly, Keng have not.

"Bang bang boom", nope, they're not the sound of durians being split open, these were the sounds made by the Scoda WRC hitting the trees & cliff with Keng piloting it. It's tougher than Ps2:Gt4, said Keng. Yeah, it probably is because the Logitech G25 has a 900 degree of turning radius & Ps2 has ermmm, 1/10th of that. Obk keep shaking his head when Keng was behind the wheel. We were struggling, we know our time will suck. We didn't dare to hope for more, a position somewhere around 6th will be good.

When they announce the results, we got more than we hoped for, a 2nd placing! D24 has collected their very 1st valuable 8 points putting us in the 2nd spot at the standings.

Tulip & pace note

2 guests, Jamaluddin & Rozita were invited to teach us about tulip & pace note. Before the class, we thought they meant tulip flower. We knew what pace note is, but we have no idea how to read and write it. Jamaluddin and Rozita are very thorough when they teach about pace notes short hands symbols and their usages. We were given some practices in writing and reading them too. The symbols & alphabets + numbers begins to looks so much more sense to us now! The pace note topic is way too vast, so we'll create an entry just for it alone in the future.

Profile shoot of D24 ..

2010-02-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

It took us quite a number of rounds of discussion to finally come to a decision on what to show the TV viewers who D24 really are. Before that, let us bring you around ideas that we did actually put into thoughts:

Drifting: OBK's drift car was a defect after Keng's elder brother converted it into a Lotus Esprit. And Keng's drift car was still in the workshop going through more modification (yeah, still at it ^^). So drifting is out of the question ...

OBK's Lotus Esprit

Bowling: We were barred from going near the aisle for making dents on the wooden flooring for launching the ball .. upward; we did get pretty good air FYI

Snooker: The only reason we played it in the 1st place was because it's near to OBK's foreman's workshop & there's an arcade center just next door
Go-kart: They didn't let us wet the track

With that in mind, we knew that we had to show our true color.

Keng spends most of his weekend helping at his bro at Nats Autopart in Rawang & OBK will sometime hangout there as well
We play a lot of PSP; they didn't tell you that in the show did they?
We play a lot of Richard Burns Rally; that's where we did our pace note training
OBK loves to play kite, Keng just went along with it

Some facts you'l find in the clip:

The Vietcong hats were purchased by OBK during his Vietnam trip
Keng was tuning the JPEG, not the ECU
Yeah, those really are microphones

Can you spot any other bloopers?

Where it all began ..

2010-01-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there were 2 guys named Keng & OBK .... okay, that's not a really good introduction.

Zero2Hero audition

So, it all started with this image T minus 2 days before audition day. Without hesitation, Keng invited OBK to take the co-driver's seat knowing that they share a common interest for motorsports.

Audition Day 1

Shortly after registration, a representative from each team was called to sit for a written test. We decided that Keng should go for it coz he usually gets it right for 'tembak'ing multiple choice questions and to his surprise, he did not need to shoot blanks coz most of the questions were about rally, haha, that's not even a surprise/

2nd program in agenda was an interview session with a panel of 4 judges, Tengku Shahrin, En Amir, Faidzil Alang from FA Racing and Faidzal Alang whom is the 1st season Zero2Hero. We were asked the usual question, how we got here, our goals & ambition, and how far are we willing to go in rallying.

Finally, the last test was autokhana or carpark rally. We were given a course layout & later evaluated based on the driving & also communication between the driver & co-driver.

Autokhana course layout

After the series of tests, we're back with the panel of judges again. Woohoo, we got a nod. OBK wasn't at all surprise coz he's very confident that the judges like us LOLOL.

Audition Day 2

2nd audition is where all the selected participants from 1st audition from all 4 states meet up. We're told that a total of 100 teams (equalvilent to 200 participants) registered & only 45 teams made it thru to the second round of audition and out of this, 15 teams will go to the final.

It's driving test again but with a very different layout this time, we pushed much harder this time around. We did a pretty clean run except for going a bit too fast at the gravel section & understeered widely.

After all teams had taken their driving test, we're back at the meeting room to wait for the finalist announcement. Waiting anxiously, we were among the last batch waiting to be selected or eliminated. And OBK was right again, they want us to stay in the program :)

And that said folks, our rallying career has begun..