Monday, January 18, 2010

The Ghost of Tekali...

Yup, the title says it all... i met the ghost of tekali >.< haha... last thursday night was a real eye opener :-p I got home a little late from the office, and while entertaining a guest at my home, around 11pm i got a msg from our good old buddy pal Hanz, inviting us for some touge fun :-) an offer i could not refuse.. X-p After setting out from home around midnight, i reached the agreed rendevous place about 20 minutes later at the heart of KL. About 1 am, we moved out... :-) Our group consisted of 4 cars, the FC, Hanz's impeccable Neo, Farizz's sponsored-laden Neo, and Halimi's fancy and impractical Neo X-p (apparently he had tinted his headlamps, rendering it almost utterly useless.. X-p cool, but useless.. X-p) Halimi just wanted to tag along and witness our touge fun we've always been talking about X-p Farizz is practically still new, so he'll try to keep up; we don't put much hope to it X-p (he's an old hand in the drag scene, but touge is a whole different ball game :-p) the only serious player is myself and hanz... We scouted the road, all conditions are near perfect :-) dry road, pack of dogs running out of the way, and hardly any traffic X-) the only thing missing is a full moon (unfortunately, there was no moon that night... O.O so things were very VERY dark...) then we started off with Hanz leading the way (since the FC is notorious for throwing off stones to any spirited pursuers X-p Hanz wasn't yet willing to sacrifice his paintjob for some ego-bloating bragging-rights of pawning the FC X-p) The uphill section, due to power difference, wasn't really a problem for me to keep up (and tali-gate Hanz X-p).. nevertheless, Hanz was taking it easy since when we reached the downhill part, Hanz didn't really push it, so i still didn't have much of a problem in keeping up... Farizz claimed that he wasn't able to keep up because his engine 'conveniently' died just before we took off.. X-p Then we swapped positions... i got the advantage at first when we took off because Hanz mis-shifted into 2 gear and fell behind a considerable distance entering into the first turn, but an incoming traffic made me slow down and gave Hanz the opportunity to make right the mistake he did... On the uphill, due to sheer power, i pulled away a bit on the straights.. X-p but being a noob that i am, Hanz just makes the difference at the turns (sheesh... being pawned day in day out is really taxing on my self-esteem...) Things turn for the worst on the downhill... Hanz, with very good road-hugging tyres (potenza re-01s) and very stiff chassis (he had fully strengthened his chassis, making the car handles like a go-kart X-p) just jump in the corners (without having to worry much about unsettling the weight balance of the car) and sticks at my behind like a stubborn tick.. Even the FC's flame-spouting anti-tailgating exhaust system wouldn't stave him off his evil course.. X-p (and apparently, his ego got the better part of him, rather than saving his paintjob, he finds it more satisfying to beat my ego to a pulp.. X-p) I must admit that i'm a coward, and driving a car that is not mine makes me even more cautious on these dangerous trips... coupled with the FC's rather inadequate stiffness and tendency to oversteer, is a recipe for a sunday cruise through the downhill part X-p But with Hanz's xenon headlights and knight-rider LED just sniffing my butt (nearing licking it X-p) i couldn't escape from the pressure it creates... i tried to push the FC a bit more in the corners, and armed with cheap-o second hand tyres, went into a massive oversteer (just like the last time when our highly-skilled friend Aaron kept on incessingly pressure us on the downhill X-p) The car's wide drift angle caught me quite a bit by suprise, so much so that i almost thought that we're going to spin out X-p but somehow i didn't really panic :-p just simply corrected the angle and try to keep the car from spinning... but as usual, the drift ended pretty badly since i missed the exit the tail just whipped about X-p Of course Hanz was so full of himself after the run... :-p couldn't blame him, i would have myself X-p Farizz came along afterwards... :-p Then we went another round.. nothing extraordinary... But i cannot but notice how Hanz would enter a corner more faster, and carry more speed throughout, as i would just have to restrain myself from pushing the car further because it is as if that was its limits (which later on i would find i was disillusioned :-p) and watch him crept away at the turns, only to be caught up again at the straights.. X-( We did another round, and this time Hanz leads again (i think... we did quite a number of rounds that night :-p couldn't really remember how much...) this time Hanz went all out on the lead.. i could keep up with him on the uphill (but he doesn't even brake O.O the guy's suicidal...) but it is the downhill where he truly shines.... X-( He hardly brakes and jump into a turn, and just floor the throttle till the exit.. his control over the car is phenomenal, any slight anomaly was quickly corrected with a jab of steering correction input... his driving instinct is extraordiary... O.O since downhill neutralizes any power difference, Hanz pulls away... X-( I couldn't bring my balls up to his standard to push the FC the way he does... i could barely hang on to him, and if the touge had run a bit more longer, he'd definitely disappear from my sights.. :-( i've never seen anybody attacking the downhill part as fast and aggresive as Hanz did that night... O.O (i believe even Aaron never did pushed as fast as he did...) i put my hat down, truly Hanz is leaps and bounds ahead of me, in terms of skills, instinct and pure ball-ness... X-( Farizz was riding shotgun with me on that ride, and he saw how fast Hanz was going, and commented at the end "padanla aku tak dapat ikut korang... laju giler.." X-p of course i wasn't really that fast, but Hanz, he's a different story all together... On the way back, we decided to do some joy riding X-p with the camera in Hanz car, i was suppose to do some drifting with the FC X-p but because i was a noob with balls the size of peanuts X-p i would inadvertantly brake too hard, killing the speed, and try in vain to power-over the FC out the turn.. X-p which didn't work because the speed was too slow and it was too dark for me to see the exit (thus wasn't really brave enough to just swing the car X-p) The last run was a pathetic attempt to look cool :-p but i noticed, that the FC actually has quite a tremendous amount of grip O.O more than i had reckoned... when i was trying to power over the car out, the rear just wouldn't go, instead the car would just propel out the corner with suprising speed O.O it suprised me a bit, and made me realize how much i've lost touch with the FC... i need to get things back up to par if i'm ever to tame the Ghost of Tekali.. X-p i can't wait for another dose of action like that... X-) we went round after round, and because Hanz was barely using his brakes, his brake could actually sustain such abusing continuous rounds at Tekali :-) couldn't wait for more... X-) anyway, here's the vids.. the video quality is really bad :-p (bcoz it was a phone camera X-p) and the FC's chase sucks about half the vid bcoz they got the camera out of focus X-p (or perhaps Farizz thought that i was going to leave Hanz in the dust, so he zoomed in the camera by default to see the FC clearly :-p obviously we know what happened.. X-p)