On August 26-31 there was a big gas touring car in Asia: the FEMCA Championship. This year it was in Malaysia. It was held at the Titiwangsa Recreational Park in Kuala Lampur. There were many drivers from around Asia, Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and of course our host team Malaysia. Participants totalled 34 cars for 1/10 scale nitro touring.
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DAY 1
Day 1 was the opening ceremony and Day 2 was controlled practice. The best lap result of each driver would sort out the qualify groups. After two controlled practice the Top 10 best lapper chart was as follows:
1) Philip Woodbury
2) Hamizan Omar 3) Charlie Phutiyotin (THA) XRAY NT1
4) Eric Ma XRAY NT1
5) M Shah XRAY NT1
6) Emeel Rizal XRAY NT1
7) Ah Seng XRAY NT1
8) Meen Vejrak (THA) XRAY NT1
9) Baharudin Mohd Nor XRAY NT1
10) Eric Siow XRAY NT1
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DAY 2
This was the first qualifying day, and every driver had three rounds of qualifying. Local driver Emeel Rizal dominated the first three qualifying rounds to take the TQ spot for the day. Charlie Phutiyotin (Thai driver) was also very fast but was faced with a slower car, putting him in 4th place. The other Thai rocket, Meen, was struggling engine problem and was in 13th position.
Top 10 result after 3 rounds of qualifying:
1) Emeel Rizal XRAY NT1
2) Hamizan Omar
3) Phiip Woodbury 4) Charlie Phutiyotin XRAY NT1
5) Eric Ma XRAY NT1
6) Ah Seng 7) M Shah XRAY NT1
8) Chui Kai Leung 9) Baharudin Mohd Nor XRAY NT1
10) Zulkefli "Ojoy" Ahmad
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DAY 3
This was the last qualifying day, and Meen finally solved his engine problems and made a clean run in round 5 to take the TQ spot just 0.03sec ahead of second spot Phiip Woodbury.
Top 10 result after 6 rounds of qualifying:
1) Meen Vejrak XRAY NT1
2) Phiip Woodbury
3) Hamizan Omar 4) Charlie Phutiyotin XRAY NT1
5) Emeel Rizal XRAY NT1
6) Eric Ma XRAY NT1
7) M Shah XRAY NT1
8) Ah Seng 9) Samual Chiu XRAY NT1
10) Chui Kai Leung
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DAY 4
Top 10 result to going into the GRAND FINAL:
1) Meen Vejrak XRAY NT1
2) Phiip Woodbury
3) Hamizan Omar 4) Charlie Phutiyotin XRAY NT1
5) Emeel Rizal XRAY NT1
6) Samual Chiu XRAY NT1
7) Eric Ma XRAY NT1
8) Ah Seng
9) Zulkefli "Ojoy" Ahmad
10) Eric Siow XRAY NT1
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FINAL DAY
After both semi-finals there were five NT1 drivers that made it into the 1-hour Grand Final. The Titiwangsa track is very demanding on tires, so Meen and Charlie used harder compound tires and planned to run entire final with one set. At the beginning both Meen and Charlie took off from the pack. Meen lead for the first 5 minutes then Charlie pushed harder and passed Meen to take the lead instead of conserving tires. But at the 25min mark Charlie's spur gear stripped and he need to come in for a gear change. This allow Meen to pass back and he took the lead all the way to the end of the 1-hour Grand
Final.
GRAND FINAL results: 1) Meen Vejrak (Thailand) XRAY NT1
2) Samual Chiu (Hong Kong) XRAY NT1
3) Eric Ma (Malaysia) XRAY NT1
4) Ah Seng
5) Zulkefli "Ojoy" Ahmad 6) Charlie Phutiyotin (Thailand) XRAY NT1
7) Eric Siow (Malaysia) XRAY NT1
8) Hamizan Omar
9) Phiip Woodbury 10) Emeel Rizal (Malaysia) XRAY NT1
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More photos - All photos copyright Racing Lines magazine
