Local garage ST Powered does Singapore proud at Sepang 1,000km endurance race debut

Steering the car were business owners Arthur Ong, Derrick Ang and Kevin Kwee. Ang and Kwee have participated in MME before, so they are no stranger to endurance racing.

Like Lek and Teh, Ong has never raced in circuits before, but that didn’t stop them from a decent mid-field qualifying in 25th position.

“Basically we set three objectives: To qualify, to set a comfortable pace to complete the race and if we could finish the race, the target was the podium,” said Ong.

“But our engine gave problems and our car wasn’t able to last the entire race. Well, we did complete more than 80 per cent of the race and after all, it’s our first time in S1K. We will go back and analyse the car so as to better prepared in the event of a next time,” Kwee added.

It was also Choon’s Motorworks’ first time racing in S1K. Driving the car were Luke Netto, Kenneth Lin and Lim Keong Liam.

Having qualified in overall 11th, the car was in a competitive position to fight for the podium and they did run in third place during the race.

Curse of the Third Gear

“We were aiming for a podium finish but our gearbox broke after about 80 laps and our third gear failed us. We also got knocked into by another car from Racecraft Academy in the pits. But we still managed to drive quite competitively to come in fifth place in class and overall sixth,” said Netto.

Choon’s also provided technical assistance to Team Beeline Racing who consisted of Benny Quek, Jack Tay and Roy Hoong.

Between Tay and Hoong, they built the car up by themselves and despite the car not being entirely ready for the race, they still bravely competed.

Quek only decided to participate in S1K three weeks before the race. “I hesitated initially because of work commitments but I managed to sort that out and this is my first time in an endurance race. In fact, this is a first time for all three of us,” said the 27-year-old business development manager.

Engineers Tay and Hoong wanted the learning experienced and was only expecting to complete the race.

“We just wanted to bring the car home and finish the race. We know we are not in a position to fight in front, so we just aimed to keep the car on the track to the end,” said Hoong.

Tay added, “Some of the difficulties we faced included the lack of practice (we only went for a few track days), the incomplete set-up of the car, learning to drive in traffic on the track (there are 54 cars on the track!) and the heat was the worst.”

Team Beeline Racing did finish the race despite a broken gearbox with a failed third gear and came in 20th in class and overall 32nd of 38 finishers.

No Success

The same team from HKS Garage-R – consisting of Jansen Tan, Kelvin Phon and Moh Tze Yang – that finished third on the podium at the inaugural S1K last year returned for another shot at the podium.

Qualifying in overall 30th out of 54 cars on the grid, the trio fought to an 8th place finishing in class and overall 12th.

Lawrence Lee, 30, director of HKS Garage-R commented after the race, “We started preparing since beginning of the year and we are quite disappointed with the results. Our first car (which had director of HKS Garage-R Lester Wong as one of the drivers) faced problems very early in the race. We fixed it but only had time to complete 105 laps to the chequered flag.”

The eight Singaporean teams did well overall, with four of these eight teams coming in within the Top 8 of Class 2. In fact, the first three teams of Class 2 are also the first three teams overall.

The team of Kenny Chua, Khamil Hyder and Kevin Tan who was assisted by KC Autolink, finished fourth in class after ST Powered in third and Choon’s in fifth. The other team – consisting of Jimmy Loh, Hun Jen Siew and Eugene Low – also assisted by KC Autolink failed to finish the race though, completing only 52 laps.

The next endurance race at Sepang International Circuit will be the MME in August.

About the Writer

Cheryl Tay is a local freelance writer who specialises in cars and motorsports. Young, passionate and living life on the fast lane, Cheryl hopes to share her passion with like-minded people through her writing and to get more girls into the driver’s seat. More of Cheryl at www.cheryl-tay.com.