Keep Rolling!

The SPARKS Motorsports Gymkhana Course done, I returned to my everyday life with Hagane and my everlasting hunt for affordable deals to continue the build.

I strongly suspect that Hagane has spent a lot of time at open air carparks before I bought her, and the front seats' so-called "leather" was starting to blister and peel off, especially on the driver's side where the daily use caused it to wear off almost completely. It was definitely time to do something about it, especially since gymkhana practices had me slide left and right in the seat which had me I waste a lot of energy into trying to stay behind the wheel of my own car instead of focusing on my driving. Thanks to a friend, I managed to get a set of second-hand SSCUS sports seats at a good price and instantly dropped them in. 

SSCUS is a Malaysian brand that devotes itself to making seats that have a great bang for buck and buying them second hand got me an even better bang for my buck, with is exactly what I needed.

I forgot to mention that just before the SPARK Motorsports Gymkhana Course that took place in May, I did some further last minute "showoff" mod.

The two stock strengthening bars that were behind the back seats were calling out to me, and their grunge/rusty look asked for a more flashy intervention.

With a smirk and a can of white spray paint, I thus resprayed them white, giving the bare back of my car a more sporty look - for a handful of dollars, I just can't help but laugh when even now people ask me where I got the aftermarket bars in the rear.

To complete the rugged look, I removed the centre armrest and cup holders and uncovered the gear selector and handbrake in the process. I wrapped white duct tape around the handbrake to avoid pinching my fingers with the revealed lock-spring on the underside of the lever, and admired the gear selector. Although in its purest stock form, the uncovered shifter impresses and more than one time I have been asked if it is a sequential shifter. Go figure. I then bought a small round black knob from Autobacs to complete its looks and feel.

Did I mention how much I love my car? :)

 

SPARK Motorsports Gymkhana Course

On the 15th May, SPARK Motorsports organised a gymkhana course, which I promptly signed up for.

On the day, over 30 cars gathered a the Punggol Marina, with a choice of steeds ranging from the Nissan Latio to off-road monsters including a RWD converted STi and an RX-7, and all-wheel drive toys such as STi's.

The aim of the day was to practice gymkhana moves and, above all, to have fun!

Arriving on the scene, I changed the wheels of Hagane to the TE37 SL replicas I acquired for this purpose with the help of my friend and mechanic of the day, Victor. 

The day started with obstacle courses such as figure-8, handbrake U-turns, before getting down to the fun little competition at the end of the day. For the occasion, SPARK Motorsports flew down Akina Teo and Leona Chin, two highly skilled drivers from Malaysia to guide us through the course and give us highly valuable tips on how to improve our skills.

The track was simple, made to apply what we had learnt during the day with a couple of handbrake turns, figure 8, a donut and a threshold braking finish, all executed under the pressure of the stopwatch.

At the end of the day, I emerged 4th of the day with a timing of 29 seconds, with Hagane performing well, aside for the clutch that started to get more and more worn off and was starting to slip. I had already been putting clutch works for a few months, and I could definitely feel that it was not going to last much longer.

Nevertheless, I had a great day, and the day finished with huge smiles on all our faces.

Thanks to Victor for your help and Akina Teo and Leona Chin for your useful tips, the marshals and of course the guys at SPARK Motorsports for the pics and videos and the great organisation of the gymkhana course!

Advanced Driving Clinic

Back in November, Spark Motorsports organised an advanced driving clinic. Upon hearing about the event, three of us at 9tro Magazine signed up to take part. This would be my first advanced driving clinic and my first time doing “stunts” such as handbrake turns and J-turns, and I was quite eager to get down to it.

In view of the event I changed back to the 15 inchers I got with Hagane and their old and tired rubber so that I wouldn’t have any scruples about pulling the handbrake and risking to leave bald patches on the tyres.

The workshops started at with low level manoeuvres such as slalom, ABS-tripping emergency braking and obstacle-dodging swerves. Nothing too fancy, but good enough for a warming up session.

Just before we got to the fun games involving handbrake turns, the skies opened and literally drowned our playground. That did not stop us though, and the wet asphalt was actually a blessing as it would be kinder on the tyres.

The handbrake turn was quite brainless, but initiating a turn and pulling on the lever like a maniac to send the car spinning is endless fun, and I would have liked to play a bit more, but we had to stop as it was time for long awaited J-turn.

I have to admit, my first one was not very successful, and the car just turned without losing grip. A quick tip from the instructor to do a full lock to get the car to spin solved the problem, and I was quickly having fun reversing at high speed and flipping the car before driving off. This manoeuvre had me wishing for a bucket seat as the stock ones are definitely not hugging and I had a tough time reaching for the gearstick when splattered on the side window.

The day ended with a mini gymkhana competition that brought together most if not all of the manoeuvres of the day in a small course. To bring the spirit of competition forward, we would all be timed, with a reward for the winners. The two rounds mini competition was flagged off, and all the cars quickly gave their best to tackle the course.

At the end of the first round, I was the second fastest with 30 seconds, one second slower than a Subaru Impreza. To be honest, I was quite impressed to be so close to a car with a one litre bigger displacement engine and four wheel drive, especially since my front tyres could not get grip and were spinning most of the time (note to self: work on my throttle control). That was not enough, though and as you can guess, I was aiming for first place.

I put in more concentration to the second run, anticipating the moves and trying to get less wheel spin, and managed to clock 28 seconds, with no other driver matching my time.

I was delighted to win, but most of all proud of my Hagane who keeps on impressing me and the people around. The problem is that I have now officially been bitten by the motorsports bug and I can’t wait to do some more spirited autocross. Until then, I’ll have to find places to train! Stay tuned!

By the way, my prize is a free dyno run, so I will soon upload the power curves of my stock little machine, as a baseline before more goodies go under the hood.










Photos by Sam, courtesy of 9tro Group Pte Ltd.

Gymkhana GRID

Most of you have seen those three amazing gymkhana videos where Ken Block slides, spins and does more mind-blowing things with his Monster Energy Drink Subaru Impreza STI and Ford Fiesta.

With over 70 million views, these viral videos have been one of the greatest motorsports videos on the Net. If you are one of the few who haven't seen them, here they are. If you have already seen them, it never hurts to see these amazing videos one more time:

Gymkhana Practice -

Gymkhana 2, the Infomercial -

Gymkhana 3, Ultimate Playground -

Well it so happens that the king of the gymkhana felt a little bit alone in his motorsport and decided to launch Gymkhana GRID, in December 2010.

Gymkhana GRID was founded by Christopher Willard (the co-founder of the Redline Time Attack Series) and with Ken Block in to design the track, the rules and regulations and promote the sport, we can expect nothing less than a new motorsport discipline that is planned to grow the way Formula Drift has.

Gymkhana GRID is open to all types of RWD and AWD cars, and for the launch event, the Gymkhana GRID Ken Block Invitational that took place on December 3rd and 4th 2010, some of the greatest motorsports drivers were invited to compete against Ken Block himself, such as rally drivers like Dave Mira and pro drifters like Vaughn Grittin Jr, Daijiro Yoshihara and Tanner Foust.

To promote the Gymkhana GRID Ken Block Invitational, a rather fun video was released on the net, giving a first view of what's to expect, along with featured drivers (excluding Travis Pastrana because he moved to NASCAR, as teased about in the video).

The concept of Gymkhana GRID is Close to Formula Drift as it sees competitors running in duo around a "small size" course. The limitation in size of the course is practical as spectators can see most, if not all, of the action from any place around the track. The competitors are pitted against each other in two rounds, once again like Formula Drift. But that's where the similarities stop. In Gymkhana GRID, the drivers compete against the clock and are not sharing the same track, but are competing on "mirror" courses that not only require driving skills, but also a lot of mental work on the drivers as they must compete both in precision but also in speed.

The layout, designed by Ken Block, includes a high speed start, figure eights, boxed donuts, and a lot of power sliding.

The Gymkhana GRID Ken Block Invitational's final round saw Ken Block and Tanner Foust going head-to-head in similar 600+hp, AWD Ford Fiesta, and even though Ken Block blazed around the course, Tanner Foust showed superior car control skills and won both rounds to claim the first ever Gymkhana GRID trophy.

Here's the final round of AWD Gymkhana GRID pitting Ken Block and Tanner Foust -

Who said Ken Block, the founder of this motorsport, would have an easy win?