Grass Racing Autocross 05/06 Round 4 @Shah Alam November 19, 2006

Grass Racing Autosports (GRA) celebrated its first year anniversary with the final Round 4 of the Grass Racing Autocross series in Shah Alam held over the weekend. GRA in collaboration with BFGoodrich Tires reached a total number of 106 entrants with a strong field of race, rally and autocross drivers. The series organized and promoted by GRA is continuing its momentum since its first Round 1 in KLCC Open Car Park last November 2005. It is possibly the only autocross series with the highest number of entries ever seen in the history of Malaysian motorsports. 

The autocross series sponsored by BFGoodrich Tires, Redline Oils, MPT Treatment and August 8, attracted drivers from as far as Penang and Kuantan to pit their skills amongst top drivers in the open car park at Shah Alam. Competitors arrived as early as 7am to prepare for an exciting day of racing. Competitors were allowed a course walkabout and one practice run before the 4 official timed runs began.  

The founder of GRA, Ian Khong coming from a family of race & rally drivers, has been able to find continuous support from various parties and sponsors to continue promoting grassroots racing locally. “GRA strives on making racing fun and affordable. Not only does it allow people with the spirit of driving to race but it also gives a chance for the community to learn racing the right way. The number of novices we have each round, is testimony to our efforts in growing this sport in this region”, explained Ian. Every GRA Autocross round is sanctioned by AAM the local governing body for the local motorsports scene. 

Entries are classified according to their engine capacities. In ‘Grass’ class, cars must remain in original form with certain allowable modifications. However for the ‘Open’ class, the cars are tricked to be really quick round the tight slaloms and roundabouts. Not only do these cars go quick in a straight line, they also have suspension setups to handle the slaloms. The ‘Grass’ class is still a fairly standard car, this is where most of the novices are in, explained Ian. 

In Class A for cars below 1300cc, the fast Kelisas dominated all top 5 positions with Chan Yau Koon Team Redline Racing coming in 1^st. Not even the 2005 Class A Champion Ian Khong was able to match the fast Kelisas in his Suzuki Swift Gti. Class B for cars from 1301cc – 1600cc, Galen Lai emerged 1^st with his newly acquired Honda Civic EK4. Despite running with a failing power steering unit, he was able to take first place.  The sole Toyota Corolla driven by Alvin Lim in an entourage of Hondas, managed a respectable 2^nd position. 

In Class C 1601cc-1900cc, Julian Pang won the class with his newly converted 1800cc Proton Wira. This class being the most competitive would prove to be an exciting one to watch for next year. In Class D, 1901-2400cc was taken by Hammond Lai in a Honda Civic 2.0L. Coming in 2^nd was Allan Au his best finish ever in a Toyota Corolla AE101. In the Sports Car class, Austin Teng driving a Lotus Elise took top honors with Johnson Tan’s Toyota MRS coming in 2^nd. 

For Class E 2401-4000cc, Ivan Khong race & rally driver took top honors in his Subaru Impreza WRX. Ivan sponsored by BFGoodrich Tires was running with brand new BFGoodrich G-Force Profiler Tires, proved that regular road tires are able to take on the semi slicks used by some of the other cars in his class.

In Round 4, the course had a fine balance between long straights and tight slaloms. For the Open Class, Mickey Teoh in his fast MR2 Turbo took 1^st place with Ivan coming in 2^nd place. The long straight proved to be an advantage for Mickey’s MR2 Turbo ensuring his mark in autocrossing for 2007 when Ivan and Mickey do battle again. This was the first head-on battle since 2005 when Ivan was the 2005 Champion in the Open Class.   

The team battle had a surprising result when Team Furtive consisting of Gareth Tan, Hammond Lai, & Julian Pang took 1^st place from Team Lotus Club Malaysia consisting of Austin Teng, Hisham Jahudi & Dominic Ang. Team Furtive winning their first ever team battle where the fastest times of 3 drivers is used to find the fastest cumulative time for the team. For 2007, the team battle will see the inclusion of Team Redline and the return of Team All Stars. Ivan Khong in the BFGoodrich decked Subaru Impreza thrilled the crowd with a taxi ride. Prizes were given out at the end of the day and a group photo session ensued to close the afternoon.    

The day of racing had the blessings of a sunny day, despite of possible rain drops in the afternoon. Ian Khong and Jiannin the only people of GRA have almost single handedly pulled off one of the best success stories for local motorsports with the support of sponsors such as BFGoodrich Tires, Redline Oils, MPT Treatments & August 8. In each round they have had more than 100 entries. GRA would be making headway when they move forward for 2007 with their series. Stay Tuned!