Sepang Drag Battle, Dec 2005

B class participants getting ready to the drag strip

After attending the GRA Autocross at KLCC and Drift Gateaway at Port Dickson the past two months, I followed up by going to the last local motorsports event of the year in the Sepang Drag Battle at Sepang F1 Circuit.

The competition is splitted into 5 different categories as follow, from standing race to the 402 meter end point:

• Category A: Open
• Category B: 2WD Forced Induction (turbo and supercharged cars)
• Category C: 2WD Normally Aspirated
• Category D: 2WD Limited
• Category E: K-Car (Perodua Kancil, Kelisa, and Kenari)

Huge crowd at paddock area

There was over 100 cars at the event, from lightly modified street legals to heavily modded monsters. There were Proton Satria, Wira, Nissan Skyline, Silvia, 300zx, Honda Civic, CRX, Mazda RX7, Daihatsu Charade, old school Toyotas, Mitsubishi Evolution, and more.

The crowd turn out was very good, I assume there were more than ten thousand people who attended the event. Tickets were 10 and 30 ringgit with the former limited to the grand stand while the latter having access to the pitch with closer look at the cars.

Cars getting ready, with the crowd at the grand stand

I thought the organiser did a pretty poor job. There were almost no annoucement on the event (as opposed to the very entertaining blow by blow account given by the MC at the KLCC Autocross event.) The crowd were often left wondering which class was running at the moment and which was to come next. There were no scoreboard, there was only the time shown at the end of the track as the car passed by showing the time and the speed as the car crossed the finish line.

“Fresh Coconut” Perodua Kancil

Some of the highlights of the event were the heavily modded Daihatsu Charade (with VR4 2.0 turbo engine, I heard) beating a Mazda RX7 FD, and the “Fresh Coconut” Perodua Kancil with some wicked intercooler (see above picture.) The faster cars run in the 11s ballpark. I never stayed till the end of the event as the sky was getting gloomy and managed to get out of the circuit to avoid the traffic jam. It poured heavily 5 minutes later. There was also a 30 minute break with absolutely nothing happening at all, while at the KLCC Autocross, there were taxi rides and demo at the break. I hope the event organiser makes an attempt to improve next year.

Heavily modified Proton Satria

For more info, check the zth sepang drag battle forum.