Pictures from the National Karting Challenge 2007!

Here's some pics as promised ....


Here's us before the race. Excited, but not THAT happy yet haha. Brandon, JP, me, Melvin L to R.

Us again ...

heh like some MTV. We were about to do our routine track walk...

Race to begin soon ... tension in the air...
The Start/finish banner ..

The karts lined up ... we were kart 3. 3 is really my lucky number....

Race underway! Don't know who's this though .. but definitely not me. Think its Brendon

One of us .... could be me. Ooops but that was a poor line into the double right heh.


Then it was announced... we won! Up on stage with president of NUS motoring and Minister of State.


Yummy medal. This was the media room where we had our interviews... (sadly tho none were published in today's papers...)

Another pic... we wonder why the Chevron backdrop

Chatting with the ST photographer haha nice guy.

Along team Speedy Gonzalez (Cat A winners), who were all over the news. 3 of them had no driving licences! Really impressive young team...


Tada! Our winning medal. =)

Champions of National Karting Challenge 2007!

Wow. What a day.

Ok let's just start from the beginning ... our team Apex (Melvin, jp, brendon and me) formed about a month ago to enrol in this competition. None of us were professionally trained in karting, but we all had a passion for speed....This challenge is open to anyone, and every team was classified by the age groups. So we were in the group of 19-25 yrs old. It was a relay, so each driver had to do 5 laps (400m each), total of 20 laps. Results were determined by time trials. Place was ECP carpark E1 converted to a mini race track.

So Friday was qualifying, and we clocked a total time of 12min 13s. Not bad. We felt quite quick that day, and kart was good, no spins nor crashes. Got the call on Sat night that we'll be racing on Sunday, where the top 6 teams on Friday will get to the finale race.

On Sunday ... I know that qualifying and racing are just 2 totally different things. How many times have I seen on F1 the pole holder lose his position later on. Or crash. Or complacent. We qualified as the 3rd fastest team, and the 2 teams ahead of us were more than 1 minute faster than us based on Fri time trials. It was going to be hard, but we had a podium chance.

Walked the track as usual. Talked through the corners. Discussed the new chicane. All was ready. Focus... focus.

When the race was underway everything was a blur! Brendon was unbelievably quick, and before long he had managed to overtake the 1st 2 teams, out of sight! Just a small lead then, but the 2 teams had started a good 5-10 secs ahead of us, so we were positioned very well.... fingers were crossed. maintain, maintain....

Melvin hopped on next. Kart 1,2 came in, so his exit was delayed. Race on! wheel to wheel, the 1st 3 karts went. At the start finish straight, Melvin applied the forward jerking technique, and helped gain 1 place!! Subsequently he was bumped at the back by some other kart but thankfully all was fine, very well in fact. He came in 1st again...

JP's turn next. quick engine on, and go go go! I was busily putting on the rib protector, gloves n helmet, psyching myself up.... come on. a few more laps to go. Pit in sign shown to him. He was coming in.. and I had the last leg.

JP off, I was on. Pit marshall said "Wait" but the karts in front were out of the way already. come on, let me go!!!! Pit was clear, and I didn't need the delay...

Finally gogogo! Grip was good. In fact damn good, better than Fri's already very good kart. The double right can be taken without lift off. Chicane 1... chicane 2... hairpin, ... double chicane... left-right and back to the straight! 1 lap done. no one behind me , no one in front of me. It was my race to lose. Gotta maintain. No pressure. Uneventful racing will win. Keep cool. No spinning. Get the tunnel vision.....

Yellow flags on last turns! Darn! Gotta slow down.... kept checking my back to make sure no one was closing on me..... and still had to squeeze into a small slot between the fallen tire and the side of the track. slowly... slowly.... I don't need the fastest lap. Just finish 1st.... when will the "pit in" show? It was to be my chequered flag.

Finally....... I saw the "Pit in Kart 3" on my last lap! It was the chequered flag!!!!!! Fist pumps... woohoo! Did it.... Went back to the pits, still quite not believing that we pulled it off. But we did! Super exhilarating!!

Handshakes with competitors .. "you guys were damn fast...." Wow. Soon after, the media flooded us, interviews and pictures (I kid you not... watch out for AsiaOne and CNA. Sadly ST didn't find us, but they had our pic) We had our 5 mins of media fame. haha. What an experience. But it all gone away when the celebrity race started and all the media focused their attention elsewhere. I saw Andy Penders, Melody Chen and Wong Lilin! heh.

Prize persentation, quite a formality.... Got a Timex and a medal. Damn cool. My 1st racing medal! yay! After that, more photographs, a few random interviews, and yup that's it. We managed to catch some precision driving by some professional stunt drivers that was really cool. tyres were burnt out! heh. Quite an eye opener.

Then the sky opened and the rain fell. Ooops. Sorry Cat C and D. Wet race for ya. Enjoy it!

End of day, our total time was 10 min 25 secs. That was really unbelievably quick... for us. We expected to go under 12 but not so much! Really proud of everyone in the team... cos we helped each other so much along the way..... even though none of us were very good. In fact the fastest lap time went to a team which didn't even make the top 3. Guess this really shows how important the team is. Racing is really a team sport!

Still we know that there are so many people who are better than us. Perhaps they didn't join this challenge. We also knew some teams in Cat C (26-35 yrs) who did 9.55 which is really impressive. But at the end of the day, we were the fastest team in our age group in Singapore, and that counts for everything! It was soooo worth the effort put in!

Whew! What a Sunday. Pics to come soon, so do watch out for them.... next time... if anyone of you goes karting.... do jio me along too! =)

The irony ...

... when I'm sitting in a HR office, speaking to a HR officer, and there she was, telling me that she's considering leaving the firm, but is clueless about where to head towards.

Guess no ones an expert when it comes to careers eh. Hmm. Interesting....

late night encounters...

haha... nothing of the spooky kind tho.

Today had lab in school till 6pm, and since it has been raining for the whole day and still was, it only meant the inevitable CTE jam (I drove today). So I decided to have dinner in school and do my lab report. So I kept on doing till 930pm when the guard chased me out of the classroom, and thats when I left towards Eng Aud. Thinking that it was term break, and nearly 10pm I thought there wouldnt be many people left in school, no?

No! All the benches in the EA block were filled, with people pouring over their laptops and books. Not just chatting at the end of the day but hardcore focused studying. Wow. And they weren't PhD students... they were undergrads (I know some of them) ! well well. Maybe cos I used to stay hall so I don't roam around school at 10pm at night. But at 10pm it was either in the band room, watching tv, playing guitar, attending some meeting, chatting with friends, dota, jogging, whatever. But definitely not studying, not even during exam period! Well, it really is competitive here eh?

Anyways, I noticed that there are ongoing professional engineering examinations (a test for pple who want the Engineer chop and can chop on official documents) .... Usually people who worked 3-5 yrs in industry. Man, they were struggling (via overheard conversations) ... Can't imagine myself studying engineering after 3 yrs working. All the formulas. I'd rather much do a MBA.

Well... guess its one less thing for me to worry now, then... =)

By the way ... it still jammed on the way back home... :S

Nice!

Just finished watching the MotoGP race in Motegi, Japan, where Capirossi won, but the main story is that of Casey Stoner wrapping up his world championship when he finished 5th, ahead of his main rival V. Rossi who finished 13th.

Seriously, he has achieved so much already ... at 21 years old, married to a beautiful wife, racing in the premium class, winning the world title. All in 1 year! oh well ... congrats to him! A mature head on his shoulders indeed!

And who knows, Lewis Hamilton may yet win the F1 title. All the young dudes, carrying the news....

2007 MotoGP Champion -- Casey Stoner

Back to MAF

Ok, stop with the MAF/muff jokes... ahem.

So I went back to Hwa Chong's annual mid autumn festival for the 1st time in 4 years... haha glad to see that some things hasn't changed much. Caught a bit of the lion dance performance, where they did some obstacles, but none of the stunts that my batch did... but then again my batch was quite different as we had the talent coming in from RV.. but wow this year at least 2 of the lion "heads" were done by girls, so that's really impressive....

There was a dragon lantern made, pretty huge, hung up across the plaza, very nice, though I must admit I was a little let down by the lack of fireworks ... this year they only lit up a rather meaningless word (I think). Anyways, the company is the most important, and met up with the OAC bunch again! So glad to see some of them since many months ago... like Chermaine and Dyan...and I couldn't stop calling Xinhui "Gigi" Giselle hahaha. She's so gonna kill me soon. So we went for the annual OAC gathering, and for the 1st time, our batch is the OLDEST batch that went back. I mean, now its the 33rd and we were the 26th! Never thought this day would come so soon.... I'm really olddddddd. But our turnout was very strong, and hock gave his usual inspiring speech... so pretty much same old =) It's so glad to see everyone moving on with their lives, but still remembering the friends that matter every now and then....

Ok. Enough of nostalgia, back to FYP!

oh the memories!

Aye how I love this song! heh. Enjoyed jamming/singing/listening everytime. The Darkness Rocks!

Happy/Sad

Well, don't really know how to describe my state of mind now. Obviously I'm elated with this proposition, as it looks very attractive right now. But on the other, demoralized because I was 'given' so much help along the way. Somehow, it didn't feel as accomplished as I had imagined.

It's like, winning a marathon on drugs. Or winning a F1 race using stolen technology. It just don't feel quite right.

Anyhow, it's not that extreme, and I must say I'm mostly delighted how things have turned out.

Imitations...

Well, anyone who's been following tennis would have heard of Novak Djokovic. Ok, young Serb, no.3 in the world etc. He's good ... but everyone should see him in his off court antics mimicking the other tennis stars, ala sharapova, nadal etc. Totally reminds me of how Kevin Spacey did his impersonations of movie stars in the Actor's Studio .... This is good stuff, enjoy!

The side effects of too much tennis ...

I was playing with XX that day. Wham! Slam! Bang! Balls flew everywhere. When we picked up the balls to go home... we saw this...


Truly, ownage...

i'm so pissed...

I'm so pissed with myself today. stupid stupid stupid argh. how can I let something like that happen to me? I really learnt it the hard way... sigh.

The Loss of Individuality

In these recent weeks, I found out that one of my friends, well let's just say that he has changed a lot. I used to think of him as a resolute guy, having strong personality and knows what he wants. Turns out that I was wrong. The loss of individuality is indeed a very sad thing. Whatever happened to his original goals and intentions, now with different influences around him?

People change, I guess.

Try saying...

"The Greatest Road Trip in Sports"

Heh this is the tagline for the US Open tennis championships. Catch the ads






Then ... watch the bloopers. Haha!!



Nadal is so funny... esp when he is so pissed at himself for messing it up, just like in a match! "NO!!"

Ownage!

Just a pure ownage match haha. One of the things I do to keep myself entertained...
BTW this is Football Manager for the uninitiated... And it ain't a friendly match... it's the World Club Champs in 2012!

Ferrari VS McLaren

Just to add on ... Ferrari's reaction to the decision was very valid. Here it is, courtesy of formula1.com

Ferrari have hit out at the FIA’s decision not to punish McLaren after the British team were found in breach of the International Sporting Code for possessing confidential documents belonging to their Italian rivals.

The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council opted not to impose a penalty as it could find no evidence that McLaren had made use of the data, which was found in the hands of the team’s chief designer, Mike Coughlan.

Ferrari, however, said they found it “incomprehensible that violating the fundamental principle of sporting honesty does not have, as a logical and inevitable consequence, the application of a sanction,” and added that they believe the decision “legitimises dishonest behaviour in Formula One and sets a very serious precedent.”

In a statement issued after Thursday’s hearing, Ferrari continued: “The decision of the World Council signifies that possession, knowledge at the very highest level and use of highly confidential information acquired in an illicit manner and the acquiring of confidential information over the course of several months, represent violations that do not carry any punishment.

“The fact that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes was in possession of such information was discovered totally by accident and, but for this, the team would continue to have it. This is all the more serious as it has occurred in a sport like Formula One in which small details make all the difference. Ferrari feels this is highly prejudicial to the credibility of the sport.”

Ferrari added that they will continue with the legal action already under way within the Italian criminal justice system. The team are understood to be pursuing cases against both Coughlan and sacked Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney, who is alleged to have provided the material in question. Both men have also been summoned to appear before the FIA.

Mclaren gets away with murder

The recent spy scandal in F1 has just been resolved. Well, that's a rather strong word to use considering not much was concluded. After all the trials, McLaren was found guilty of being in possession of Ferrari's technical documents, and the sentence was ..... no sentence. Due to lack of evidence that McLaren used the knowledge to their advantage.

Yeah. So in a high tech sport like F1, where every bit of information is crucial to a team's performance, and even race strategy, this industrial espionage has gone unpunished for there was no proof of advantage gained. Well, to be honest, it is hard to prove so. With technical data of the rival's car, you can put the data into your multi-million dollar simulation software and determine the greatest probability of the rival's race strategy. i.e. qualifying fuel, tyres, pit stops. Which are such important factors into today's racing especially with the tyre wars long gone. But it is near impossible to prove the fact that McLaren had based their strategy around beating the Ferrari one, for they can easily claim it is their own best strategy. Very much alike if say, Liverpool managed to get their hands on Man Utd's tactics for the upcoming match, knowing which players they are gonna start with. Again, it is not easily proven that Liverpool can use the tactics to their advantage, although I bet they surely would. Who wouldn't.

"Oh, I'm just gonna close my eyes and pretend I did not know their strategies and their competencies this weekend, BUT I think we should lessen our qualifying fuel " etc. Makes for fun racing, sure.

McLaren is found guilty of contravening a Sporting Code, so they should be punished. Perhaps a point deduction would be in place, or out of running for the manufacturer's championships. But the driver's should remain in the competition.

Alas, F1 is a sport steeped in such subterfuge, that team spies are known to take photographs of cars up close, for lab analysis. Ultimately, to preserve the image of the sport, and to maintain what so far has been an outstanding season of racing, money sense prevailed, and McLaren are free.

In all probability, in the next trial, Mike Coughlan will be found guilty and expelled from racing for a couple of years. But he is already sacked from McLaren. So the company is protected by these layers of, shall I say, protection, to protect their own integrity.

Perhaps viewers come first, in such a lucrative competition. So then, Hungoraring next....


On another note, I recently just finished watching 3/6 eps of the HBO miniseries Angels in America. Looking very very good I must say. And I think my tolerance for homosexuality has definitely increased. Haha.

Saturday 9pm Ch18

Really, just a reminder to myself to catch this show.

AFI Life Achievement award to Alfredo James Pacino=)

Welcome back to NUS.... NOT!

oh well. Since round 0 of CORS started today I thought I would login just to get a feel of the system, which I have left untouched for a year. Lo and behold. Welcome back Mr. Chen...

Your standing: EE3
Program pts: 750
Gen pts: 250

GREAT. I'm as good as a freshmen now, where I should have at least 2500 Prog pts to play with. just great. and I should be EE4, but its probably due to my SEP results not out yet.

For the uninformed, think of CORS points as a 'savings account' where I get 1000 points every semester and use some pts to bid for modules. Obviously the remaining points get carried forward. So all my storing of points, is now, effectively useless. I'm back to square 1.

Still, credit due to the helpdesk girl, who was really friendly and sounded genuinely surprised something like that has happened. Hopefully she gives me a ring soon...

Racing at its best !

Wow, what a fantastic Nurburgring race! Many things which I want to say, but its all very well-expressed in the report here. If the Singapore race next year is half as good, that's enough for me!

Highlights of the race:
- Rain in after 40 seconds into the 1st lap. And its a heavy downpour
- Spyker's Winkelhock, in his race decut in his home race, with a especially shrewd change to wet tyres after warm-up lap, led in his 1st F1 race for 1 full lap! That's everything a rookie can ask for.
- In turn 1 of the 3rd lap, in the space of about 30 seconds, 5 cars, 1 by 1, slid, no, aquaplaned off the hairpin into the gravel and tyrewall. It was simply hilarious (well I don't think the drivers would agree haha)
-pit stop frenzy to get wets
-Kimi missing the pit entry. Well he tried, but slid off and ended up on the track! Meaning he would have to go 1 more round on grooved slicks
- red flag. very sensible given the conditions
- Hamilton joins from the back! Saved from the gravel-yard!

Race restart in bright sunshine
-Kimi had a engine problem. So did Winkelhock. Definitely memorable for the German...
-A rather routine 50 laps until ....
- Rain predicted in 7 mins, with 12 laps to go!!!!
-The rain came, the pits were open and busy, and race on!
- After much probing, Alonso managed to edge past Massa on the track. There was contact, and it seemed rather agressive, but Alonso was way faster and would have gotten past some how.
- Last 3 laps to go... and in the last corner of final, Webber nearly threw away his podium 3rd on a slide that had Wurz inches away, but managed to hold on....
- Post race, in the holding area before prize presentation.... WAR OF WORDS between Alonso and Massa. A slur of Spanish flying around. Very tense moments, but very watchable! Even Ron Dennis just stood and shut up.
- Presentation ... Schumacher presented the trophy to Ron Dennis for winning constructor. hohoho. the agony, man.

Racing needs this kind of excitement, this kind of tension, this kind of drama. I love racing.

Memories of a concert

Great memories...

From Muse Wembley ...

From Muse Wembley ...

From Muse Wembley ...