Event: Malaysian Southern Series Round 1
Track: Southern Alley Raceway Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Date: March 4, 2012
The inaugural Southern Series held at Southern Alley Raceway was run on the 4th of March and over 100 drivers from Malaysia, HK and Singapore were in attendance to start the series off with a good result. The Southern Alley Raceway crew provided a new layout and racers were greeted with plenty of sunshine for the event. It had mild weather in the previous week and with some watering and rain the track was in perfect condition. Racers practiced on Saturday and on Sunday competed in 3 heats to place them in to finals in a Christmas tree setup with the aim to make the main.
JConcepts Team Driver Ben Panic, Didier Perrin, and Wenyi battled out the 3 rounds of qualifying and Wenyi emerged with TQ followed by Didier and Ben. Qualifying was super close. Ben held TQ in round 1 and 2 as Didier and Wenyi had trouble with traffic in the 17 car heats and the same traffic stuck Ben in round 3 as Didier and Wenyi finished .2sec apart after 7 min. The finals got under way and the top 5 would bump from the lower finals all the way through to the semi where the first 7 in each A and B semi would get to the main and the next fastest driver from either the A or B semi. Ben and Didier both won their semis and would end up lapping the field. In the A semi Wenyi flamed out with 2 min to go but was lucky to have a lap up on the field and he would start the final in 9th.
The 60 minute final kicked off and it was a great start for the pack. Didier, Ben and Boy Chan proceeded to gap the field and lay down some really quick laps. At the 4 minute mark Didier and Ben had increased the pace and gapped the field. The next 20 minutes these two drivers put on a display as they pushed each other around the track separated by no more than a second or two. Fuel stops went to plan for both drivers and Boy was holding down a solid 3rd place with Wenyi making his way through the field.
Ben and Didier swapped the lead for the next 10 minutes and then at the halfway mark Didier rolled through a jump section and his car flamed whilst on his roof. He got restarted but Ben had a lap up on him and proceeded to push and build the gap. Ben’s Novarossi fuel efficiency also began to play a part in the race as he was stopping less than the other drivers. With Ben now in a dominant position it became a closely contested race for second between Dider and Boy. They were on different fuel strategies and by 50 min mark second position was going to go to Boy or Didier. Boy had the XB9 flying and he ended up beating Didier to the flag by 8 seconds. Ben continued to control the race from the front and held the lap on the field; it would finish like this with the JConcepts driver crossing the line victorious.
JConcepts Products Used
Hybris (green compound)
Inverse Wheels
JConcepts Wheel Nuts