Enduro 4: Fast n Furious wins despite early engine problems
Sepang Kart Circuit
Saturday, 26th November 2005
event link: http://club.my-kart.org/index.php?q=node/269
Azlan's photos: http://shahrulazlan.fotopages.com/
Dennis Woo's photos: http://denniswoo.fotopages.com/
Brian C's photos: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/happyguy8042/my_photos
Fast n Furious overcame kart problems at the start of the race to win the 4th my-KART Enduro event, beating 12 other teams for their second win of the season with a total of 78 laps in the 80minute endurance race.
Second position went to Tail Happy Racing. Team Principal Fazz Rahman said he had mixed feelings about the result as although it was a good outcome by most standards, he felt that it was marred by some transponder and timing failures.
"Although we felt we could have won, Tail Happy Racing is pleased with second place as it gives us the championship win... but we need to do more on the timing systems in future to avoid the problems we faced today", said Fazz.
Gila Racing was third and team principal, Brian Eravelly was happy that Gila Racing has been consistent throughout the season. Gila Racings was perhaps the only team that maintained the same 4 drivers since the start of the season and all drivers performed well to finish on the podium for the second consecutive event.
There were a few dramas during the event as Team Full Throttle had an engine seizure very early in the race, whilst Cool It had to retire early due to engine failure. Team Rapid which had set the pace very early in the event eventually finished 9th citing transponder failure which failed to clock the correct number of laps. Other teams also had some transponder failures, but to varying degrees of impact.
However, Fazz commented that "the event overall was a successful one. However, there are areas that we need to work closely with KartQuest in order to improve the reliability of the karts, the timing systems in order to have a better outing for everyone. I would like to personally thank Azmee Ahmad, team principal of Cool It for helping out with the PA system; Yip Yen, asst team principal of Team Heavies for sponsoring the nasi lemak; Naza, TP of Team Aliens for providing the weighing scales and to everyone else for being such great sports. May we continue having great fun in 2006".
The full race results are as follows:
[CSV]
Result,Team,Weight,Kart #,Grid,Laps
1,Fast n Furious,(267kg*),7,13,78
2,Tail Happy Racing,(313kg),8,8,78
3,Gila Racing,(318kg),15,7,77
4,Team Heavies,(333kg),10,5,76
5,Team Aliens,(258kg),5,1,75***
6,Kookaburra Racing,(291kg),13,10,75
7,Mad Karters,(313kg),6,9,70
8,Hyper Kart Team,(284kg),2,11,68
9,Team Rapid,(261kg),4,4,66**
10,Team Novice,(275kg),3,12,65
11,Cool It,(265kg),11,3,65**
12,Romeos,(326kg),9,6,63#
13,Full Throttle,(246kg),1,2,1***
[/CSV]
* includes one female driver
** includes 2 lap under-weight penalty
*** includes 3 lap under-weight penalty
# penalised 1 lap for overtaking before the start-finish & green flag
Final my-KART Enduro 2005 Positions after 4 rounds:
[CSV]
Position,Team,Rnd1,Rnd2,Rnd3,Rnd4,Total Score
1,Tail Happy Racing,6,2,4,2,54
2,Fast n Furious,4,,1,1,52
3,Gila Racing,13,4,2,3,45
4,Team Heavies,1,,5,4,43
5,Romeos,3,3,6,12,42
6,Team Aliens,,1,7,5,40
7,Cool It,2,,3,11,35
8,Kookaburra Racing,12,,9,6,21
9,Team 156,8,7,,,17
10,Mee Fook Yew,5,,,,11
10,Slowpokes,,5,,,11
12,McDonald’s,,6,,,10
13,Underweights,7,,,,9
13,Mad Karters,,,,7,9
15,Axon,,8,,,8
15,Chicane Buster v6.9,,,8,,8
15,Hyper Kart Team,,,,8,8
18,Mix Doubles,9,,,,7
18,Keppa,,9,,,7
18,Team Rapid,,,,9,7
21,Speedy Gonzales,,12,13,,7
22,Need 4 Speed Underground,10,,,,6
22,Anseri,,10,,,6
22,Zippy,,,10,,6
22,Team Novice,,,,10,6
26,Backmarkers,11,,,,5
26,WAC,,11,,,5
26,Daipro,,,11,,5
29,Go Head Go Stunt,,,12,,4
30,Full Throttle,,,,13,3
31,Initial D,14,,,,2
[/CSV]
ST:
Fazz,
Team Heavies was 4th in Round 4, but it showed 5th in the Final result.
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»Nohad:
A TV monitor showing the instant result as provided by CK (and like F1 live timing) should solve the problem.
Teams would know the their position (we were lost on our position during the race), lap timing, transponder not working (or missing) so that the team could signal the team driver to speed-up or maintain position.
Anyway, the last endurance was great fun and we shall meet again for the 2006 endurance series.
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»TheFazz:
Well spotted. Apologies for the mistake. Now corrected.
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»TheFazz:
Only partially. If the team is able to spot a transponder failure, the team will still have to fix it (and possibly lose time). What we will need is manual lap chartting. We probably need 3 full time people to do this. Need to think how though.
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»cyclonite:
Fazz,
Another way is to beef up the efforts to fix transponder problems and in addition have a video camera at the start-finish line to record the entire race end to end so if there are any disputes the committee can review at a later time.
ANyway here are my photos,
http://photos.yahoo.com/happyguy8042
Could you please edit the first page to include the link to mine too? Thanks.
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»Nohad:
It's difficult to overcome the issue of transponder failure (unless under manual recording and even that is not reliable) and which is of why an instant realisation of transponder failure or drop-off is required by the instant display on the TV monitor (unless we can kebas one of the F1 team monitoring system), a transponder shall be treated as part of the kart just like the tyres, exhaust, etc... Losing time to fix or change the transponder should be treated as one the kart damages such as the examples I mentioned earlier.
Counter measures such as having manual lap recorders is good but difficult (but can be done)especially with pit-stops confusions and they shall not be the members from the competition teams.
Any part-timers looking for a job as lap recorder? RM10/hour inclusive 3 bottles of mineral water.
Just my 2 sens worth.
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»Huffiz:
just a few comments on the last enduro.. Full throttle team seized their engine on lap 15 due to poor carburettor setting by the mecs (too lean). And also a transponder failure. Well, sad story... End up going home early, lucky with refunds. Thanks to Fazz.
Upon our underweight entry, we were given 5 laps, later reduce to 3 laps penalty. well, actually i tested the kart earlier, it only gain 1 second a lap faster than average lap times. meaning after 78 laps... that's equivelant to 78 second time gain (1.3laps).
For a thought I would not want to race that moment. Not a slight chance of winning. But for the sake of fun racing, well yeah.. we gave it a go.
Hopefully i can find a fat guy for my team next race.
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»naza:
Huffiz,
I too am incline to agree with that fat guy step plus getting my team mates to get a bit fatter too. In a more powerful kart, the weight advantage may not be as significant as in a 80 cc kart. The best compromise is to add weights to meet the minimum weight as we had seen in sanctioned races. Lets see whether we can get the next race with this method.
Agreed, that was for fun....but we sill need to consider the weight issue in 100 ccs and higher.
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»TheFazz:
I certainly would not want to encourage my-kart members to start putting on weight. Fitness is one of the aspects that my-kart would advocate.
So the solution is to do a test of the weights and impact to timings. Perhaps we can have separate sessions at Shah Alam and Sepang on the 100cc karts. Perhaps a consistent driver can volunteer to do the timings with and without additional ballast.
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»Huffiz:
already gave a good example of my laptimes. what? u think i can do 2 seconds a lap faster?? i must be ala raikkonen to do such thing la... hhehe
yes i'm glad to volunteer as a test pilot *grin* consider if it's free though. so fazz, your kart available ka
)
my suggestion is to do lap qualify as usual for grid position, and underweight given ballast. CIK/FIA style
or... make two different category. super featherweight, heavyweight and the obese hehehe
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»cyclonite:
In my opinion I would personally want to carry weights rather than to start a few laps behind. Simply because if we carry weights, it's still within our control ie: just have to control the kart differently and try to make up for the disadvantage. However if a team starts 2 laps behind, the disadvantage is no longer in the team's control.
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»TheFazz:
bro - your test showing that you went 1 sec faster - what was the weight difference?
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»Huffiz:
Okay, this is my theory.......
if 240kilos total weight = 60 kilos average/driver
(underweight 30kilos = 6 laps penalty)
if 288kilos total weight = 72 kilos average/driver
(average weight)
so, 12kilos per driver advantage = 0.7secs a lap
(100cc yamaha - wai leong's culculation)
80 laps total = 56 seconds advantage = 1 lap gain
6 laps penalty minus 1 lap gain = 5 laps remaining....
err.... that's nuts la how can i catch up another 5 laps difference?? let shumacher drive la.. see if he can win.
so, you have to CULCULATE AVERAGE WEIGHT difference. not total weight difference.
get my drift??
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»Huffiz:
you can penalize 6 laps... if it's a 4 seater kart!
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»Huffiz:
if 270 total minimum = 67.5 average
team aliens 258 total = 64.5 average, 3 kilos difference
no penalty...
team aliens should have at least topped 3, or won the race
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»TheFazz:
Bro - the weight penalties is not necessarily meant as an equaliser. It is a penalty. In F1 even a 1kg below the minimum weight will cause a team to be disqualified.
Even if we wanted the weight penalties to be a form of equaliser, it would never be perfect. However, I would be happy for you to draft the rules on weight penalties / equaliser with me for our coming events in 2006.
Our enduro rules can be further developed here.
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»TheFazz:
Just to add a bit more to the weight discussions: I would also invite any others to participate in the discussion & development of weight penalties. Perhaps the likes of Naza, Jules etc may want to chip in.
Let's discuss the rules more here.
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»Huffiz:
Good response from all.. Thanks Irwan, Jules and Hazry for understanding my point of view.
In SERIOUS KARTING, when you are under-weight, you add ballast to pass minimum weight regulation correct? You don't get penalties. We're not breaking any rules here in the first place, so NO we don't get PUNISHED.
What I'm trying to say here is that there is no such thing as weight penalties. You just have to comform to minimum weight rules. If you're not, don't qualify.
My misery is when you don't have weight ballast, you give such unfair "penalty" is un-sporting in racing.
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