My First Track Experience at Sepang International F1 Circuit

[Guest angela]

My First Track Experience at Sepang International Circuit

Coming from a gaming background of Need for Speed and other street racing motor sport simulations, naturally I would be biased against what would seemingly mundane tracking – driving a car around and around a set circuit with corners ready to tear its suspension and handling abilities to bits.

Need for Speed pumps in adrenaline as you zip in-and-out through traffic, while DIRT provides you with the ultimate rally racing experience, Test Drive Unlimited gives you the trill of pushing the limits of stock rides through traffic in what would be virtual real life situations on the road, but none of this can give you the actual feeling of being physically at the wheel, performing this actions with no reset button.

I retained my initial prejudiced perception of tracking right up to the tracks on a blistering hot Tuesday afternoon in Kuala Lumpur. Bringing the most underpowered saloon vehicle any racecourse would probably ever see - a stock C180 Kompressor with 143 bhp - didn’t help alter my attitude one bit.

However, the moment my wheels attained traction with the monochrome tarmac, I started to realise – tracking isn’t anything about gaming, or proving your ride can perform maneuvers to outflank the other engineered chunks of metal that were blazing by me – tracking is about tracking.

It was like go-karts, upsized! Except you weren’t trying to go faster than your team mate, you were alone on the track, and you had no goals, no milestones, no competition. You were against yourself; or at least I was. I’d found my racing lines, and taken it, I’d realised how to trail brake, clumsily, but I would manage with this, for the moment.

Coming back into the pits, I invited my co-driver for this event, Gerald Chua, for his first passenger ride in his crazy friend’s severally handicapped Mercedes. With a 1.9 ton body powered by a 1.8 litre engine and an entry level supercharger, it didn’t help make the experience any more eventful by the fact that we had the air-conditioner set high to cool the cabin with 2 plump blokes perspiring away with their skin tight helmets on.

That configuration coupled with the fact that my sprint booster was on loan to a fellow C Class driver meant that my right foot which had to be heavy for the long 300km drive up from Singapore was wearying out. Lap after lap was draining its energy slowly but surely, so I had to pull into the pits for a puff.

My next passenger was Sharman, a fellow 5 series enthusiast with a history of uncaught motoring violations which rivalled mine. Bringing him on his first round with me was an eye opener I presume, probably appalling him at how well I could handle my ride on the road, but I couldn’t track for nuts. 2nd round, and this time Sharman was teaching me how to brake at the right points before the cornering, thus preventing me from trail braking and causing premature wearing on my brakes which may have been disastrous on the journey back to home country.

Another 3 or 4 laps enabled me to further fine-tune this newly acquired technique up to a point where Sharman was willing to offer his baby (a Stage 1 modified ride that could easily keep up with my 523i) as sacrifice for his students’ drilling. Coming back into the pits once again after a cool down lap, teacher Sharman inspected the temperatures of the workhorse, and as most of the degrees appeared satisfactory, we took a toilet break and started to chat.

My final rounds on the circuit did not involve me driving. Instead I had the honour of sitting in our very own Kompressor’s Tuned A4 for several laps around the track. Sitting in the passenger seat allowed me to really learn the proper racing lines, braking point, degree of braking and appropriate level of acceleration from a 3rd person point of view, yet still inside the car.

This experience to Sepang has been a revelation on another category of motor sports. I won’t say I’ll be a hard core fanatic to this brutal and tiring form of pushing both yourself and car to the absolute limit, but it has been an insight once again to the amount of discipline, training and ability a race car driver goes through. I will definitely be bringing something that has more of a monster under the hood and better handling the next time I go down to a circuit. Tracking isn’t about anything else. Tracking is about tracking.

[Guest angela]

sorry about posting this soooooo late since the event, had been quite busy lately.

for photos you can refer to the img gallery sepang thread. =)

[Guest Mike]

:thumbsup:

[Guest Otsego]

I will definitely be bringing something that has more of a monster under the hood and better handling the next time I go down to a circuit. Tracking isn’t about anything else. Tracking is about tracking.

what monster are u talking about?

[Guest angela]

what monster are u talking about?

maybe an SLK350 Clarsson if my "god brother" will let me... if not den a 335i? Z4? M5? or C180 with 55 engine inside -> alvin car....

:offtopic: aiya wilson.. why u never follow us yesterday...... u see the way shar and i drive the convertible.. u will be jealous.... 3 litre twin turbo leyyyy :offtopic:

[Guest Otsego]

:'( wah 335.... i only got 1995cc :'(

[Guest angela]

:'( wah 335.... i only got 1995cc :'(

you dun tease us ok... u 3500cc + 3500cc + 1995cc + 2000cc = 11000cc... even the bugetti cannot win...

[Guest Otsego]

sillywilly ]

:' wrote:

you dun tease us ok... u 3500cc + 3500cc + 1995cc + 2000cc = 11000cc... even the bugetti cannot win...

our "TP" friend still faster le...hehehehe :police:

lets poison me tml