From the other side of the moon...

Yeah this is another really late post, coz my internet connection around the kingdom of heaven here is just so slow... So I do apologize for this belated report :P

Anyway, it is no longer a news about our recent crash at the touge, but I'll try to re-iterate the events from my experience... And try to retrace the events that culminated with that crash....

And besides, I have nothing better to do :P

This rivalry between Keisuke and Hanz probably started from a year ago, before we can dispose Hanz at the touge without breaking a sweat... But with his immense talent, I noticed how fast he was learning and then we were caught in a race against time to prep Kate for the coming storm...

At the time, Kate was a rickety old rusting bucket, her chassis would buckle, twist and roll under the load we exert on her at the touge, so trying to control her at the limit was becoming a handful...

With Hanz Neo commanding a 200kg weight advantage against us, with his tricked out Neo and RE-01 rubber, the odds was stacked against us...

And then the inevitable happened, Keisuke was ignominously and thoroughly beaten at our home course >.<

The uphill section was not much different since Kate still had around 40-50hp advantage against Hanz Neo, but the downhill became a slaughter fest... Hanz has taken his first scalp :P

He was mulling the idea of battling me next and his domination of Tekali touge would be complete, but luckily for me, Kate's mending period was over.... From now on was performance enhancement, we were finally starting from ground zero after 3 long years of ownership :P

The first issue we addressed was the banana chassis, we immediately slap in a 10 point roll cage and the result became immediately obvious...

The chassis maladies was no longer a problem, but I know to go against Hanz Neo we would need more than a strenghten chassis, we would need the rubber shoes to match the level of grip he have in command at the touge, no more cheap-o 2nd hand tires... we were pulling off all the stops!

But then tragedy struck, Keisuke crashed at Tekali.... Luckily no one was hurt, but Keisuke emerged from the incident a shattered man.... His self confidence reached a new nadir point.... And we were back to mending Kate again...

And it seems the misfortune happened both ways, Hanz also had a road accident... Rolled his Neo and totaled it to kingdom come....

So for both of us, we were back at the drawing board :P

For us, since Kate had to go through a thorough overhaul, we also decided to give her a massive upgrade... Hanz was not far behind the idea as well, he bought a new Neo CPS and had it undergo the same mods as his previous Neo and more, with the Neo CPS being a better baseline model its potential at the touge became leap and bound better than before...

For Kate, it took us almost a year to have her in running condition and having her suspension properly set up, with a pair of semi slicks up front we were able to harness her new 300hp heart with confidence^^

Her handling became so crisp she was like a big go-kart, shakedowns after shakedowns she was finally ready for an assault at Tekali :)

Unfortunately there was one more event that have a hand on what happened that night, our track day at Kg Gajah....

During that exciting day, our semi slicks expired and out of deperation we had to change it with a cheap Korean tires... It was the widest tires we could find there to fit our extra large wheels :P

Those Korean tires have just enough grip on the street, but when subjected to the rigours of the winding touge the tires were wanting at best :(

Kate became sluggish and slow to respond to any minute steering adjustment, compounding the problem was that the tires would easily lock up under heavy braking, especially the front left tyre... With a bent wheel well, remnant from the last crash.... the suspension geometry became awkward, the front left tire has less grip than the right and would easily lock up....

And when the front left lock up, Kate's handling would just be unresponsive... I had my worries about them tires but my pocket was not really in a position to changed the tires immediately, we had to make do with what we had...

That night was our last hurrah, before I return back to my working world we would flirt one more time with danger at our favourite hole ^^

We first had a solo run each, and it seems that our average speed around the course has increased tremendously that we were both scared out of our wits with each of our runs...

Then we met up with Hanz and he was also shaking for some touge action so off we sped off for our 2nd round of touge ecstasy...

The first battle was me against Hanz, but due to the initial uphill section the power difference was too much that the battle was over just after the first corner >.<

So we divided the course into uphill and downhill section... I waited for Hanz at the peak and once he was back at my heels we sped off for the downhill battle ^^

The night was cold and damp, the grip level was very low... It was so bad that during my downhill battle with Hanz the left front tire locked up on several occasions... Seeing how bad the situation was I decided not to explore my upper limit but just keep Hanz at bay, he was holding on admirebly... A stubborn defiance against the much more powerful Kate...

Only becoz of Hanz driving skill he was able to salvage some challenge in the Neo, once the downhill run was over his heart rate was pumping furiously with adrenaline...

The next round Keisuke took the wheel and off we went for the return leg...

The uphill battle was a no brainer, and for the downhill... Since the return run comprises more high speed corners Hanz werent able to make up the grounds, even though he pushed right to the edge, his efforts was just too little to make any difference... Only with a sudden fog blanketing the touge near the finish line that Keisuke had to slow down which alowed Hanz to catch up..

But that night everyone was pushing periliously close to the edge, and with Hanz proposing to Keisuke that the next battle will be their rematch Keisuke was all fired up, his long awaited rematch....

Since it is no longer fair to run the whole course they decided to only do the downhill leg.... So slowly they climbed to the peak for the starting line and once they reached it Keisuke burst into the night!

Initially he was holding his cool... Then when the course becomes tighter Keisuke tried to up his pace, I noticed his line was becoming messy and then reaching that fateful left hander Keisuke locked the front left wheel... As we were going through the corner Keisuke was taking longer than expected to unlock his wheel.... He has just jumped over the limit of his car control, Kate was no longer in his command.... That must have been the longest few seconds in my entire life... Everything was becoming slow motion up to the point that I thought Keisuke may have been able to save the situation, I thought he had shed enough speed to avert the incoming catastrophy... But that sense of slowness was just an illusion... Kate hit the ditch barrier at such force that send the rock barriers over her nose o.O

She nose dive into the mountain and did not stop for another 5 metres plummeting her head at the mountain side....

Once she stopped my first thought was to get out of the car in case she caught fire, once Keisuke was out as well we knew everyone was ok....

But no matter how much I tried to show Keisuke that the crash no big deal, I can see it in his eyes a fire has just went out...

For me coming to the touge, we are mentally prepared that we will likely have an accident,becoz the nature of motorsport is dangerous in its own right...

Combine it with public road, the hazards are unimaginable... Luckily we were the only casualty that night, no one else was involved.... Taka and Jasril from touge G helped us secure a tow truck and riding with Hanz we towed her to our mechanic shop for that long lonely night....

Kate has once again passed her zenith.... We have to go through the phase of mending her, but for me the hardest would be to mend Keisuke's broken spirit...
And that night even Hanz Neo suffered.... Hanz pushed his Neo so hard that we found out his fuel hose burst.... o.O
Luckily his engine did not catch fire....

The vid below was a compulation of our touge action that night, its just the second part becoz the vid for the first part got corrupted and I was too lazy to fix it :P

http://youtu.be/keTd1-rPWRo