Date: 15th June 2008
Event: Turf City Singapore Nitro Challenge Round 4
Weather: Hot/Sunny
Track Condition: Morning damp/ Afternoon dry dusty
Heats: 7 minutes
A finals: 1 hour
Morning qualifying started promptly at 9:00AM without delays and immediately saw Ryu Goh setting quick lap times of 46sec and setting the bar at 9 laps @ 7:31. XRAY driver Luigi Venturi (still running the XB8EC) showed some quick driving with 46sec+ lap times and showed potential, but he ran out of fuel and ended round 1 with 8 laps @ 6:50. It would be Team XRAY driver Chester Chua putting in a very composed run to finish round 1 with 9 laps @ 7:26 and take the provisional TQ.
Round 2 of qualifying was unlucky for Chester Chua as he did not start due to a throttle servo failure. Luigi Venturi would go on and set his 9 laps @ 7:39 to secure a spot in the A-main.
Round 3 saw Ryu Goh set a fast time of 9 laps @ 7:10 to clinch the TQ spot for the day. Chester Chua was unable to better his time and thus could not challenge Ryu. Luigi Venturi had fast laps but a few mistakes caused him to not improve in timing. Team XRAY driver Glenn Phuah, defending TQ from SNC round 3, was not able to attend due to work commitments or it would have certainly been a more exciting battle for the TQ spot and finals.
The new track layout was a good combination of technical sections with many tricky sections, which required some finesse to achieve quick transitions into the turns that followed. Kudos go to Ah Leng the track owner for the new layout, which was a good surprise to test our adaptability.
A-main starting order:
1. Ryu Goh 2. Chester Chua XRAY XB808
3. Ben Seet
4. Joe Hwee
5. Ah M 6. Luigi Venturi XRAY XB8EC
7. Dickson Lim 8. James Loke XRAY XB808
9. Alvin Sim 10. Daniel Lim XRAY XB808
11. Gary Goh
The hour-long A- final was a close battle with drivers exchanging positions throughout the first quarter. Chester managed to out-battle Ah M and Ryu Goh to jump into the lead and hold his ground. Luigi -Venturi fought hard to climb up from 10th after a bad start, which in turn led to a fierce battle for 3rd place with Joe hwee and also Ryu Goh for 2nd ; this went on until the final seconds. Ah M who had earlier given Chester a good run suffered some engine problems and could not catch up, such was also the case for Ben Seet who had a promising start. Nonetheless the final was a close one with Chester Chua winning with 71 laps, Ryu Goh close in 2nd with 70 laps (merely 25s behind) and Luigi Venturi in 3rd with 70 laps. All in all, it was a very exciting race and we were proud to have four XRAYs in the main finals with 2 finishing on the podium.
Final order: 1. Chester Chua XRAY XB808
2. Ryu Goh 3. Luigi Venturi XRAY XB8EC
4. Joe Hwee
5. Ah M
6. Alvin Sim
7. Dickson Lim 8. James Loke XRAY XB808
9. Garry Goh
10. Ben Seet 11. Daniel Lim XRAY XB808
