Those of you among the estimated crowd of 30,000 people who attend the A1 GP race at Sepang on Sunday would probably have noticed the Jobstreet.com tent put up in front of gates 4 & 5. From 10am till the minutes before the race commenced, volunteers – which included a few of us from AW - stationed in the tent were busy giving away freebies to holders of Jobstreet.com ticket vouchers. 

Besides Jobstreet.com, other entities such as Proton and Mofaz also gave away a sizeable amount of free grandstand tickets to the public leading to an unprecedented turn-out. Past the turnstiles, the crowd had a row of Lotus cars to pose with besides the usual food and beverage stalls, which undoubtedly made a tidy profit.

The race itself was a disappointment, as far as Team Malaysia is concerned, having been undone not by poor strategy or driving, but by a technical mishap that sent driver Fairuz Fauzy into a confused pitlane who did not anticipate his arrival. This sent Fairuz hurtling down from 3rd place to 13th. Nevertheless, the man salvaged some pride with some very daring driving and overtaking maneuvers that sent the crowd to raptures.

Down but not out, Fairuz, consistently clocked lap times between 1:50 and 1:51, and slowly inched his way up the opponents within striking distance. Once up close, he attacked relentlessly, diving down their left and then right. His tenacity saw Team Lebanon and Team Italy battered to submission, and considering the circumstances, he can actually be proud of a 10th place finish – which he richly deserved.

Those of us at the Jobstreet.com tent were truly humbled by the overwhelming support from the crowd coming to us. Autoworld.com.my and Jobstreet.com wish to thank you all for your support. We hope you enjoyed the race as much as we did, and see you next year.

Early in the day

All hands, man your stations!

Everybody pose in front of the Jobstreet.com banner!

The crowd braving the scathing heat…

Jobstreet.com’s tent getting overwhelmed! Help! (p.s. Thanks for the support everyone!)

The most wanted cap in Sepang.

We were really struggling to keep up with the demand….

Look at the crowd!!

A few Lotuses on display

As if as more noise were needed…

Blistering heat ensured good business for the ice-blended coffees.

What’s this clown doing here?

Spectators getting into position.

Spectators getting into position.

The safety car - Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano (don’t you just love the sound of that name?)

Team Malaysia getting ready to start…

Maserati Quattroporte – Medical Car.

This image was captured with some effort…

This too..

Pit crews in action… much easier to capture.

Team Ireland takes the chequered flag.

Crowd applauds Fairuz, despite coming in 10th. Drove with guts.

Team Jobstreet.com leaving the scene.

Armed with a pair of media passes, this writer and his companion were given free access to the paddock and pits for the 5th round of the 2008 Sepang Drag Battle.

For Round 5, participating cars were divided into seven categories, labelled A to F. Category A was defined as the Open Category (read: no-holds barred) where teams are not restricted in terms of the modifications they perform to the car. Cars playing in this category are the meanest of the lot, with extensive powertrain and chassis modifications.

Some cars in Category A were observed to have had their complicated multi-link rear axles stripped and replaced by a solid axle in the name of weight saving. The winner of the category was Lai Wee Sing of Team R-Engineering in his Proton Satria. With this victory, Wee Sing was crowned overall winner of the Sepang Drag Battle season for 2008.

It was the same story in Category B – 2WD Forced Induction, with Wee Sing’s Team R teammate, Mohd Zamri Ahmad, who won both the round and the season, though unlike Wee Sing, Zamri had sealed his crown much earlier in the season. Category B cars are limited to 3,000cc engine capacity and can only have one of either turbocharging, supercharging or NOS.

In Category C – 2WD Natural Aspirated, cars with engines up to 2,000cc are allowed. The engines can be equipped with variable valve timing systems, but must not be fitted with NOS or forced induction systems. The title in this category went to Mohd Maziz Ahmad, who could afford to skip the round and make way for Ahmad Firdaus Ahmad to win the race on the night.

The regulations are further tightened in Category D – 2WD Limited, with maximum engine capacity shrunk to 1,600cc and variable valve timing prohibited altogether. Ismail Mutalib won it for this category and thus sealing the Category D title for himself.

Category E – K-Car was the playground of all the souped up Kancils and Kelisas. These are Peroduas that you don’t want to mess with, as I personally timed a couple of them to have clocked 12 – 13 seconds during their practice lap. To put that figure into perspective, that’s the territory of cars like the BMW M5, Ferrari 612 and Mercedes “55 AMG” variants.

It should be noted that, these cars were given the option of turbocharging or supercharging, with minimum weights of 650kg (NA) or 750kg (forced induction) invoked on the cars. The Category E winner on the night was Azlee Awang, who came in ahead of season champion Azery Mohd Norazli.

Category F – Avantech On The Road Class was a playground filled mainly by Hondas and Satrias. Split into VTEC and non-VTEC subcategories, cars in this category battle it out only as a one-off, with no season titles at stake. The technical restrictions are almost identical to that for Category C in addition to the cars needing to be road legal and having their exteriors and interiors intact. Zainal Abidin Abdul Rashed and Kamarul Azeman Arshad won it for the VTEC and non-VTEC categories respectively.

The final category was Category G – Campro, where, you guessed it, Campro-powered cars contest amongst each other in yet another one-off. This category was originally opened to 4G18 and 4G92 powered Protons before the organisers changed their minds and renamed this category to be the Campro Drag Battle.

Participants in this category see far more technical restrictions than the rest. For a start, the cars must be powered by Campro engines displacing no more than 1,601cc. Participants are free to modify their transmissions, brakes, suspension and ECU, but the car must weigh more than 1,500kg (excluding driver). It was even stipulated that the front and rear passenger seats were to be in place – not that I saw there were any.

Indeed, it made me wonder if the engine capacity restrictions were adhered to. The stock Campro already displaces 1,597cc and a simple reboring or restroking by just half a millimetre would already increase the engine capacity to 1,618cc or 1,606cc respectively - that’s just half a millimetre. I know for a fact that there are tuners who have rebored and restroked Campros up to nearly 1,700cc.

Winning the Campro Drag Battle, was Mark Darwin, who drove the only Proton Waja on the day, beating a score of Gen.2s and Neos. Further down the pecking order are a couple of Proton Personas who participated under the banner of the The Persona Club.

With the end of Round 5, the Sepang Drag Battle 2008 concludes. However, the action at Sepang did not end there, as there is the A1 GP this coming weekend to look forward to!

Reference:  News | Sepang Circuit

Pictures courtesy of Mr. H.C. Gui.

This is one mean Satria.

Solid rear axle, with drum brakes!

The VTEC army ready to take on Cat F

Cat G participants pit here – for Campro Drag Battle.

Poor Gen.2 stripped to bits.

Stock-standard looking Persona

The Kancils mean business too. Many of them clocked 12-13 secs for the quarter mile.

Cars lining for the first practice.

…and off they go!

It all went past us in a blur.

The sun sets, but the action goes on.

All the Hondas jockeying for positions.

Beauty shot of the grandstand.

Malaysian dragsters

Check out those massive tyres…

Visitors from Singapore also present.

Crouching camera, hidden power.

Crowd and cars together.