Friday 17th November 2023: Scrutineering – One day before the event
With a very talented team and a dash of luck, Malaysian Blue Turd has made it to Sepang International Circuit.
A former F1 circuit, Sepang is currently home to MotoGP as well as many local race series and track days.
At 5.5kms long and consisting of 15 corners and almost 1km straight, to say I was excited to drive here would be an understatement.
I was not the only one who was excited.
Our two Malaysian/Aussies Stacy and Julian were also marvelling at the fact that they were about to drive their home circuit for the first time.
Upon walking through the grounds of the circuit it was an immediate sensory overload.
Was this a fever dream? If it is, don’t wake me up.
I was now finding it hard to breathe and this time it wasn’t due to the humidity.
How had I found myself in a place with the cutest and best race cars in the world AND I get to drive on a track with them?!
I’m fortunate enough to have been to a few motorsport events around the world in my travels and even if I wasn’t driving, this was easily the event that ticks off all the things I enjoy the most about Motorsport.
High powered purpose built race cars? Nah, give me small underpowered cars driving around a circuit any day of the week.
If this is a simulation, whoever wrote my story got it right.
‘So want kind of Motorsport event would Ying Bot like the most? Probably ones with lots of small cars racing each other. Cool, we’ll call it K Car Global but first we’ll make her run lots of small car track days in Australia first before we unlock this in her storyline.’
While the Japanese cars were unloaded and the local cars rolled in on the back of tow trucks, I found it amusing that we had just driven our car over an hour through Kuala Lumpur to get here.
After getting the car up on jack stands, our first stop was to driver sign in where we would receive our driver passes, fuel cards and a goodie bag.
The race is won by completing the most number of laps at the end of the 24 hour period however, to ensure cars are not doing back to back time attack runs and manage their pace, fuel is strictly regulated.
Fuel strategy will be crucial as no one wanted to DNF after 24 hours of racing due to not having enough fuel to cross the finish line. We’d heard in the past that a team that was winning had to sit out the majority of the last hour to conserve fuel and only came back out at on the final lap to finish the event and in doing so, lost their place on the podium.
My drivers pass.
After sign in, the mechanics of the team got to work on completing our unfinished items from the following day in preparation for scrutineering.
I figured I was more of a hindrance than a help so instead took a walk down pit lane to check out the other competition that had already arrived.
While all cars classify here classify for this event due to being Kei powered cars, there are some different categories that teams can elect to compete in. You’ll notice the race number stickers all have a different background colour which denoted what class each car was in.
Class 1 – Yellow
- R-Type cars
- K-Car Production car using 713cc force induction motors
- (Turbo or Supercharged)
- Daihatsu Storia engines
This Lemans inspired Ferarri 512M (thanks to Shane for the info) was a delight to behold.
I asked one of the Japanese competitors what the single seater R-Type cars use as a chassis and was told they were 30 year old ex Japanese formula cars.
In this class was also this micro GT40 replica which I’m now calling a KT40.
I’m not sure what kei chassis is underneath this but was told that it would likely a Beat/Copen/Cappucino – how damn cool.
Class 2 – Green
- Forced Induction (Turbo or Supercharged)
- 659cc Only
This duo of Suzuki Cappucinos immediately caught my eye.
One with an aggressive widebody…
…And another with a more subtle over fender.
Class 3 – Blue
- Naturally Aspirated (NA)
- 659cc, 713cc and 850cc
The Wakos Beat had one of my favourite team names.
Class 4 – Red (our class)
- Naturally Aspirated (NA)
- 851cc – 1000cc
We are representing team Big Block.
We also had a pretty great team name…
As our car was scrutineered, we’d hit a snag when it was noted that we had no kill switch.
The team had read through the regulations numerous times and this was not mentioned at all however, this may have possibly a circuit regulation and not one from the organisers?
Dave and I walked around the pits to ask some of our new friends from other teams what exactly had to be killed with the kill switch in order for him to figure out how it would be done.
He didn’t get the news he wanted as an external and internal kill switch was required. This was when I realised that he is also perhaps one of the calmest people I have ever been in the presence of. With a bemused smile and maybe only a slight eye twitch to suggest at his inner turmoil, he got to work.
Julian, Marty and Blair then left to the nearest town to find the necessary supplies for the job and we continued on with car prep.
A special shout out to my old friend Alif and Team Apex who heard of our struggles and begun calling around to find one for us. Thanks Bro!
In this time I went for another wander and shut the front gate…IS THAT A FOOD FESTIVAL AT THE TRACK?
How did they know what my dream track day would look like?
After I treated myself to a trackside char kuay teow, the boys arrived back and had luckily managed to find everything required.
At 3pm it was time to head to drivers briefing.
At our Nugget Nationals events, these are usually held in pit lane with me shouting loud enough for the drivers to hear us.
But not today. Today we fanceeeey.
After taking our seats Marty pointed up at the screen, “Hey look, our team name is there!”
As the briefing went on, this slide came up to show us the “Track Safari” which was part of the closing ceremony of the event. All team members were allowed to climb on to the car and complete the final slow lap of the circuit at the races end.
After the drivers briefing, we headed back to the pits to check on Dave. He gave us the thumbs up and we then were able to pass scrutineering – PHEW!
With a final wheel check…
…And a final snack check
We pulled down the rollers shut for the day and headed back to our accommodation. We are ready as we can be and we have only one goal in mind – To cross the finish line with a running car.
Noisy Ninja 