We all know that Formula 1 merchandise/apparels are expensive in general. For a F1 fan like me, the excitement to get a hand on the team’s T-Shirt is just indescribable. I do have some collections of Minardi, BMW and Jaguar. Some of those shirts, I won from contest and some that I bought, I do have to think it through really a lot before putting hands down to get hold of these shirts, cause it’s just too pricey.
When Air Asia announced its partnership with Williams F1 team, I’m so excited, because I know one day, there would be Williams-AirAsia merchandise on sale. And not only that, it would be at a reasonable price. And I was right
I just want to tell the F1 fans (particularly Williams die-hard fan sinces Mansell, Hill, Villeneuve time), that you can own this Williams F1 shirt for a very reasonable price. Of course, I had got myself the T-Shirt, and the cap and recently the Polo T, which I bought straight away the moment it was out
For the price of RM39-49++ (++ means delivery), I thought these apparels are cheap compared to the one I saw here in Melbourne, Australia. The F1 shirts sold here ranges from AUD 50-90. I just can’t buy it. It’s just way beyond my budget. But with AirAsia, it’s possible now. I should add to their slogan….”Now everybody can own a piece of F1 shirt”
So F1 fans….for the pride of yourself, log on to redmegastore now!
Recently stumbled across this blog written by a racing fans like myself. What encourages me the most is his posts are about a tribute to Malaysian racers. How many Malaysian racers do we actually/really know apart from “err…..Alex Yoong and……I give up”?
My interest for motoracing started during my uni years (around 2001). That was also the same year Alex Yoong was recruited as the first Malaysian driver into F1 with team Minardi. And my passion for motoracing is still in me even up to today.
The involvement of Malaysian racers in competitive racing over the years is encouraging as well. To know more of your fellow countrymen who fought hard on track, you can go to this website (TRIBUTE TO MALAYSIAN DRIVERS) and have a read up of what these local racers have done over the years of active racing.
And just to highlight, we have a very young talented uprising racers, Jazeman Jaafar. If this impressive form continues, I reckon one day he can be a star to watch out for. Go Jazeman!
After the end of Formula 1 2008, if you don’t want to get yourself into the Racing Withdrawal syndrome, try A1 GP. This is the 4th season and this is the first time that the A1 GP teams will be Ferrari engine built based on F12004 that Michael Schumcher won dominantly in 2004.
What’s more interesting for this season (apart for Team Malaysia won the opening round of the race in Zandvort, Netherlands and now leading the championship table…), you can watch all the action LIVE on the A1GP official webpage itself. By going to A1GP.com and click on LIVE VIDEO STREAM, you will reach this page
Choose whatever video resolution that want, and voila, A1 GP race on your computer. I thought this is so cool. With TV coverage for A1 GP rather limited, this is what I long for. I watched the Chengdu Race here and so can you for the remaining of the season.
A1 Malaysian GP is coming in 2 weeks time and with team A1 Malaysia is leading the championship, be sure to fill the Sepang circuit (for those who can) or go to this website (for those who can’t go to Sepang) to give your support to the team. The team has improved quite a lot and Fairuz Fauzy definitely improved his driving a whole lot.
If you can’t get yourself too close to F1 because of the price, give yourself an A1 GP treat. This is when you can get yourself as close possible to the pit garage and on track activities. For those who are in Malaysia, go to PitStop.com under A1 GP forum thread, for more info. You will be getting the experience of the lifetime. At least I did….when I watched the A1 GP Malaysia qualifying live from the Team Malaysia pit garage!!!! How cool is that.
Here’s the snippet of what Flora and I experienced…..
Pit garage for A1 Team Malaysia
The pitstop.com fans. It’s not “for the exclusive type” , just have to know the correct people. Check it out in pitstop.com
We were given free T-shirt and see how close you can get to the car
Flora with Fairuz Fauzy, the current A1 Team Malaysia driver
Me, watching the qualifying LIVE from the pit garage
Ace Kart is claimed to be the best Go Kart place in Melbourne, Australia. It’s located in the suburb of Albion-Sunshine (20 minutes drive from CBD). Their motto of Real Life Racing is no joke. You will eventually understand as you read along this post. If you have a group of 12 and above, you can place your booking and have the whole track to yourself for 25-40 minutes depending on the package you are interested in.
Enough of those introduction. The cell group organised a Go Kart experience as the social activity for this month.
Ace Kart – Real Life Racing
14 of us (including 3 invited friends) had the track to ourselves for 25 minutes. After trying Go Karting twice back in Malaysia, I always ended up last because of my weight and in addition to the kart used back home were of lower horsepower. Hence, the lighter you are, the higher the chances of you going fast. So, I assumed the similar thing would happen here. And I was wrong…..
When Ace Kart says, you will enjoy Real Life Racing, you ARE going to enjoy Real Life Racing. The Kart used were very powerful and it can reach the speed of 50-55km/h (I don’t know the exact speed I was traveling at but the simulator at Ace Kart website has the exact figure).
I’ve never seen such a high tech place for Go Karting. Using touch screens computer, we were to register ourselves before entering the track. After all the members of the group had arrived, then the track marshal gave us a safety briefing. The briefing took about 5-10 minutes. After the briefing, it was suit up time, and off to the pit and it’s racing time. The package we signed up for consist of 10 minutes of practice and qualifying and 15 minutes of racing.
*ahem…The Stig Malaysia, Me ready for practice/qualifying.
The Kart was really powerful and you can feel the G-force pushing you around as you negotiate the corner and over the chicane. I thought my years of training on the computer simulator (it’s actually F1 Games ) does come in useful for me to learn to the take the best racing line.
After qualifying, the marshal informed us of the our qualifying position. I qualified 6th. Not bad for a start considering you can do all sorts of daredevil in the computer games but not here .
P6 after qualifying.
When the race started, all the adrenaline was pumped up and all the excitement begins. I must say, I had a very enjoyable time battling with the 5th placing driver. All my attempts to overtake were cleverly blocked for good 10 laps before a lapped kart helped me to do my overtaking. It felt like how Hakkinen overtook Schumacher using the help of a lapped car of Zonta in F1Belgian GP in 2000. (You can watch how Hakkinen did it here). Hehehe…I’m dramatising it up.
On the 12th lap, there’s yellow flag situation with one of the safety tyre was no longer at the safety position and hence, a safety car situation was deployed. (Of course, there’s no real safety car but the scenario did look like one). So… after the marshal fix the incident, and the restart get underway.
Restart after a safety car situation.
So, the race continued. I lost out too much time trying to overtake the 5th position driver and the safety car didn’t help much as there were few lapped kart in between me and 4th place. So at the end of 15th minute, I ended up 5th without much progress. Negotiating through the lapped kart was also a challenge as there’s no blue flag
Anyway, it was a thrilling and exciting experience. I was quite amazed by the “seriousness” of Ace Kart with their motto. At the end of the race, there’s a podium ceremony and the top three were awarded with prizes by Ace Kart.
There’s even podium ceremony – don’t play play.
Unfortunately, due to the confusion by the Ace Kart staff, the 3rd place winner shown in the picture was not the podium finisher. The correct result was only clarified 10 minutes later where the photo taking sessions were already over. So, being a true sportsman, the 3rd place (in the pic) gave his winning prize to the original 3rd place winner. This scenario reminded me of Fisichella’s win being reinstated after 1 week of FIA clarification in 2003 F1 Brazilian GP.
Ace Kart even emailed us our time each lap we did in the circuit. How cool is that. This is indeed Real Life Racing.
Our time set each lap. The highlighted black color time indicates personal best time.
When I started watching F1 in the year 2001 (it so happened that the year that Malaysian have their first F1 driver, Alex Yoong), the F1 have 11 teams and 22 drivers. At the end of 2001, team Prost couldn’t sustain and bid farewell to the F1 club.
Prost F1
However, Toyota came in and we were still at 11 teams and 22 drivers.
In 2002, team Arrows have some financial problem and they had to withdrawn at the 3 quarter of the season and after that from 2002 till 2005, we were left with 10 teams and 20 drivers.
Arrows F1
In those 4 years, private owner teams couldn’t sustain the higher and higher cost of running the F1 and hence, we have ownership changed so many times.
Jaguar changed to Red Bull in 2005.
Jaguar F1
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Red Bull F1
Jordan changed to Midland in 2005, then to Spyker in 2007 and now Force India in 2008.
Jordan F1
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Midland F1
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Spyker F1
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Force India F1
Minardi, the smallest yet the most gung-ho team and loved by everyone changed to Toro Rosso in 2006.
Minardi F1
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Toro Rosso F1
Even Sauber couldn’t sustain that they have to partner with BMW in 2006.
Sauber F1
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BMW F1
BAR as well had been absorbed into Honda in 2006.
BAR F1
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Honda F1
And on 6 May 2008, we bid farewell to Super Aguri. A young team of 2 seasons and 4 races old team. Due to some sponsor issue last season, the team couldn’t survive and laid to rest. I was quite sad that F1 again goes back to 10 teams and 20 drivers. Arigato Suzuki-san for all his effort to setup a team in 2006.
Starting from 2008 Turkish GP, we are back to 10 teams and 20 drivers. Sad….
I saw this tag line long long time back when Shell stated in their banner that “More Mileage with Shell”. So I did a little bit of experiment of my own by comparing Shell and its cousin in green color. In fact, I was using the other fuel in my car for quite some time till one incident that emergency made me switch to Shell as the “Empty Fuel” sign was on and the nearest station was Shell. That’s when I discovered something interesting. Hence, I did myself a little experiment for verification.
NOTE: I am NOT advertising for Shell. I am just doing my own experiment.
So, I switched back to the other fuel and pumped full tank. The amount of mileage it took me was 228.3 km (approx 142.7 miles).
Then, I switched to Shell, reset the mileage button.
And with Shell the amount of mileage it took me was 282.3 km (approx. 176.4 miles). A difference of 54 km (approx. 33.8 miles).
Learnt and experienced something today. My first (hopefully the last) date with PUSPAKOM. If I’m not mistaken with effective from 1 Aug 2007 (correct me if I am wrong), all transfer of ownership of vehicles (you are to sell your car inclusive) must be certified by PUSPAKOM. I didn’t know that and only got to know that after my transfer of ownership was rejected by JPJ due to the absence of PUSPAKOM’s certification.
So went to GOOGLE to find where’s the nearest PUSPAKOM. And you CAN find it using GOOGLE and it is a very very flashy website. What I impressed me though was the detailed map of all the PUSPAKOM branches around Malaysia to direct you to find them. There’s one in Bangi near the POS LAJU collection centre, so decided to go to that one.
Reached PUSPAKOM at 10am. Wow, the queue is already building. The procedure is actually quite simple. Show them your car registration card and fill up two forms. Queue your car. I queued for almost 90 minutes. When it was my turn, I need to pay RM30 of processing and certification fees. After paying, give the receipt and all the needed documentation to the officers. He checked the engine, checked whether the ensure the car is not “kereta potong”. He checked underneath the car. All these procedures took about 5 minutes only! Then I was asked to wait for the issuance of the certification. That took me about 15 minutes. “LULUS” was stamped on the certificate. Yay! I can do the ownership transfer. So, as conclusion, I waited for 90 minutes, officers checked for 5 minutes and issuance of certification for 15 minutes. 5 minutes! 5 minutes only! Total “wasted” time is 105 minutes.
Before I left, I had a view of the queue of the cars and it stretched for about 600m. Thank God, I was there early. If not, I think my “wasted” time would be >> 105 minutes. Well, that’s my morning date with PUSPAKOM. On the bright side, I did get to experience part of car selling procedure.
Had a emotional moment this morning (25 Sep 07). Not because of Mooncake Festival which coincides but because of my farewell with my Wira.
Bought the car in 2002 and it served me well over these 5 years. I cried with Wira, I laughed with Wira and I felt what Wira felt. No wonder F1 drivers often say, “the car is part of me and I’m part of the car”. I can really understand what Wira is behaving for we are part of each other after 5 years of friendship and bonding.
Hence, to bid farewell to Wira is really hard. I’m grateful that its new owner is a safe driver. Hope Wira finds new home with this new owner. Here are some final moment with Wira.
Auf Wiedersehen mein Auto! Ich vermisse dich. Für alles, danke. Viel dank.
(Good bye my car! I miss you. Thank you for everything. Thank you very much)
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