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!
