In mid 2004 a new track opened in Klang town, the Stadium Kota Raja track.
Since it was so new, traction was very high as you can see the tar is very black. it also was a high speed track. By this time, my SV-10 Alcyon is already 4 years old and pretty long in the tooth. Just simple placing of shock clips, wasnt enough anymore, but i only found out later. My friend Ong Sun Aun with his Xray T1 Evo2 was there most of the time with me, and i found my car spun out quite easily when puching throttle out of the corners. I ran the car like that thinking its time for a new car. Then one day at OSAs house, i chanced upon his Xray Manual. Now i do admire the Xray too, and i bumped upon this little X ray T1 setup book, i asked him to lend it to me, being the curious guy i am, and took it home to read, everything about shock springs, oils camber, i knew well, but one thing in the book shocked me, something i never heard before until i set eyes on that book, TWEAK. It described a way to check if your suspension is tweaked. So i read intently and understood what needed to be done. Basically the book described the knife method of setting tweak. So i did it, and the next day tested the car at the track. This time i was a fromidable contender, it was like my SV-10 Alcyon had a new lease of life, it was totally planted, and carried a lot more speed into the corners without losing rear traction !In fact my friend Brian Tan who drove a brand new MR4TC CGM was totally amazed at the transformation, coming in every corner, i almost rear ended him, not only that, in the switchback turns, i was neck to neck with him, he couldnt lose me !
I even went up against the really good drivers and rich guys of the time, like Azhar, Leonark Kee, Azam, who came there to practice, they were using Yokomo CGMs and the new TRF415. Again, i could hang with them easily and the corner entry speed was amazing ! Azhar even came to my pit area after the bashing session, he didnt say anything about my car but he was looking at it, an obsolete car than can carry great corner speed ! But unfortunaetly, it was years later that i found out i was somewhat cheating. You see those guys race in international races, and they follow IFMAR rules, and for IFMAR rules. the rear wing must be very low, me i didnt cut my wing, thats why i could rail through the corners , as i only race occasionaly. Also, the Malaysian National Championship or MNC was very lenient on those IFMAR body rules back then until 2007, so i could get away with it. At that time, they just wanted people to race. But thats not to say the tweak setting didnt help, it helped a lot ! I actively raced my Alcyon until 2006 with its new lease of life. I did notice the limitations of this car, by 2004, all the other cars were using vertical ball studs upper links, that means their camber links can be as long as possible, and shocks could be stood more upright for better response, there were times when i feel the rear end wasnt as planted as it should be, and i had to slow down more. Maybe its just the car getting old.
one of the last races i entered the Alcyon in was the Tamiya Invitational race in this track in 2005, here is the video, i won the B main, i was only 3 seconds shy of the A main, Micheal Quek beat me with his Alex Racing Barracuda R3.
Notice that Acang with his Xray T1 FK05 was catching up on me, becuase my rear end was swinging a bit, i couldnt take the corners too fast..showing the limitations of the suspension. Notice also that his car lost control at the straights and i managed to lead after that.
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