Round 3 of the RCMC National series took place on August 23, 2009 at the East Coast Park Raceway. The track was wet in the morning due to an overnight rain, but luckily the sun was shining which helped dry the track.
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Qualifying
The first round of qualifying started at 10:30AM. Traction was not very good due to the rain but XRAY driver Erwin Luhur managed to set the pace with a fast lap. By the second round, the traction has improved and many drivers managed to improve their times. Erwin Luhur held provisional pole with teammate Jesse Wu in 2nd place, Tom Goh in 4th place, Don Chng in 6th place and Aaron Sim in 7th place. In the final round of qualifying, only a few did better and the final top 12 qualifiers after three rounds were as follows:
1. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
2. Philip Lee 3. Jesse Wu XRAY NT1
4. Tom Goh XRAY NT1
5. Barry Ng 6. Don Chng XRAY NT1
7. Aaron Sim XRAY NT1
8. Tay Wui Kiat
9. Don Ng
10. Daryl Chen
11. Terence Chung 12. Nick Kuan XRAY NT1
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Final
In the 45min A-main final, Erwin Luhur and Philip had a great start and started to pull away from the pack almost immediately. Teammate Jesse Wu got hit during the start and dropped back to last place, but he managed to chase down the pack and by the 15min mark he was back in 3rd place. Meanwhile, Tom Goh managed to climb to 2nd place but a mistake a while later caused him to drop to 4th place.
Don Chng was driving a consistent race and was holding on to 7th place. Aaron Sim had some technical problems which forced him to retire at the 18min mark. Nick Kuan managed to climb from his 12th place start to 9th place. Erwin Luhur continued to drive without any mistakes and his lead was never challenged. At about the 25min mark the sky suddenly turned dark and it started to drizzle and so the Race Director made the decision to shorten the race to 35min.
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The final finishing order was as follows:
1. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
2. Jesse Wu XRAY NT1
3. Philip Lee 4. Tom Goh XRAY NT1
5. Terence Chung
6. Tay Wui Kiat 7. Don Chng XRAY NT1
8. Daryl Chen 9. Nick Kuan XRAY NT1
10. Barry Ng
11. Don Ng 12. Aaron Sim XRAY NT1
