By Ling Hui
KOTA SAMARAHAN, Feb 19: Dust was in my eyes, probably in my mouth too. All I could smell was burnt rubber from smoking tyres, and my heart was definitely racing.
Here at La Promenade Mall’s carpark earlier today, novice and professional drift racers from all over Sarawak were “warming up” for the upcoming Borneo Star Drift Battle.
Cars such as Subaru BRZ, Nissan Silvia, Toyota GT86, Toyota Corolla KE40, Toyota Celica TA22, and even a classic BMW E30 were some of the drift-ready machines making the laps on the course this evening.
The sun was scorching hot when the drift practice event began at about 3pm. Halfway through, approaching 4pm, it started to drizzle, but the sky cleared up quickly.
Whether in dry or wetter conditions, nothing stopped the drifters. Skilled drivers showed off their mind-blowing driving maneouvres while novice drivers tried to make full use of the time to practice.
At one point, the Subaru BRZ and the BMW E30 started tandem drifting side-by-side through the course, and when they finisher, the crowd which had gathered for the event clapped and cheered.
I, a layman to cars and drifting, had a front-row seat to the event. As I quietly watched my first-ever drift show, I was invited to experience sitting in a drift car, which the drifters cheekily named ‘Drift Taxi’.
Of course, I politely declined the offer and watched as my media colleagues got into the modified machines and blasted off onto the course.
Until the very end, I didn’t muster up enough courage to get into one of the drift cars.
Now that I’m back home, in front of my laptop writing this story, the thought haunts me — maybe I should have tried the Drift Taxi, after all.
To all car fans out there, if you missed the drift practice event at La Promenade Mall today, luckily you won’t have to wait long for the Borneo Star Drift Battle which will take place on March 4 and 5, at the same venue.
The Borneo Star Drift Battle is organised by FL Motorsport (FLMS), sanctioned by Motorsports Association of Malaysia (MAM) and Sarawak Motorsports Association (SMA), supported by Petra Jaya Motorsports Club (PJM), Sarawak Motorsport Festivals (SMF) as well as Hock Seng Lee’s (HSL) La Promenade Mall as the venue provider.
The drift competition is divided into three categories, namely Novice (entry-level), Pro-Am (professional level), and Novice+Pro-Am (for participants who join both categories).
Invited judges included first badge national drifter and founder of National Drift Series (NDS) Zai Bullzai Hamdan, founder of Old But Gold (OBG) Jason Lim, founder of Fusing Race Team (FRT) Gui Foo Sing, and Asian Drifting Cup 2019 champion Fazreen Ismail. — DayakDaily
