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| Race Report by Erwin Luhur |
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| The 2009 Singapore GP On-Road Open Challenge is a yearly event held at the East Coast Park Raceway. It was a 2-day event and foreign drivers from Australia (Steven Jovanovic & Leigh Dyton) and Indonesia (Sadikin, Danny Iswahyudi, Fayakhun & Kris Heriyana) were the first few to arrive at the track two days before the event, followed by drivers from Malaysia. The race format for this event was Christmas tree format with no top 4 sit-out for both the 1/8 and 1/10 classes. The schedule had 3 rounds of qualifying on Saturday and all the finals on Sunday. There were a total of 45 drivers for the 1/10 class and 22 drivers for the 1/8 class. |
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Saturday (Qualifying Rounds)
Qualifying started at about 10:00AM after the opening ceremony. The weather was good all day and two rounds of qualifying were run successfully before the lunch break. The last round of qualifying was run after the break and a few NT1 drivers managed to improve their times on the third run. At the end of the three rounds, there were five NT1 cars in the top 10 with Erwin Luhur securing 3rd place, Jesse Wu in 5th place, Danny I. in 6th place, Sadikin in 7th place and Tom Goh in 9th place.
Qualifying results:
1. Philip Lee
2. Nelson Lee
3. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
4. Barry Ng
5. Jesse Wu XRAY NT1
6. Danny I. XRAY NT1
7 Sadikin XRAY NT1
8. Albertino Sang
9. Tom Goh XRAY NT1
10. Daniel Chee
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Sunday (Lower Finals and Grand Final)
Semi-Finals (20 min)
In semi-final A, it was not a good start as there were many cars hitting each other at the first corner. Sadikin got hit badly and dropped to last place. Only the top 2 positions, Philip and Erwin, got away from the first corner without any incident and therefore they managed to pull away from the rest of the pack.
Sadikin, who was driving at a fast pace, was able to catch up and was slowly moving up in position. Jesse, with his consistent driving, managed to stay in a mid-pack. Tom was driving on pace and managed to stay in 3rd place but at around lap 25, due to some technical problems, he began to drop down in position. Steven Jovanovic was able to move up a few positions but due to an engine problem he had to retire from the race at lap 12.
At the end of the 20 minutes, Erwin finished in 2nd, Sadikin in 4th, Jesse Wu in 5th and Tom in 9th place. The top 5 positions in this semi-final would get into the Grand Final, putting three NT1 cars into the Grand Final. |
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In semi-final B, most cars managed to have a good start. Nelson led the pack and on lap 3, Danny moved up into 2nd place from his 3rd place starting position. With consistent driving, Don Chng moved up slowly to 5th place.
At the end of the race, Danny finished in 2nd place and Don Chng in 5th place. From this semi-final only two NT1 cars would get into the Grand Final, making a total of five NT1 cars from both semi-finals A & B. The Grand Final starting position was as follows:
Grand Final starting positions:
1. Philip Lee
2. Nelson Lee
3. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
4. Danny I. XRAY NT1
5. Kris Heriyana
6. Barry Ng
7. Hengster
8. Sadikin XRAY NT1
9. Don Chng XRAY NT1
10. Jesse Wu XRAY NT1 |
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Grand Final
There was a short break after the semi-finals for the drivers to prepare their cars for the Grand Final. Then very quickly, the sky turned dark and it started to rain very heavily. Since it was already in the late afternoon and there was no chance for the track to dry, the Race Director decided that the Grand Final would not be run and the final results would be based on the Grand Final starting positions which were as follows: |
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Grand Final results (based on starting positions)
1. Philip Lee
2. Nelson Lee
3. Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
4. Danny I. XRAY NT1
5. Kris Heriyana |
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