The final tsuiso battle had all the ingredients for a potent powder keg with South East Asia's reigning drift champ and the indisputable crowd favourite Tengku Djan Ley lining up against Ah Fai, who has seen an exponential increase in form lately and was laying down some consistent door-to-door drifting all day coupled with the mandatory tyre-smoke screens.
There were a million reasons to smile for Ser Ming Hui (Ah Fai) at the FX Open Drift Championship but he was only interested in 100,000 of them, or more precisely, the 100,000 that was printed on his winner's mock cheque.
From the moment qualifying kicked off, it was crystal clear that Ah Fai and Djan were the ones to look out for as they seemed to be driving like men possessed; juggling some pretty high speeds and extreme angles whilst still managing to tame the uneven and rough surface of the Speed City Kuala Lumpur course.
Speaking of which, as exciting as the course was, the uneven and sometimes coarse surfaces was a gold-lined path to some pretty horrifying crashes and it didn't disappoint. Saturday's practice was marred by contestant Tony Angelo's spectacular crash against the concrete barriers that saw the car flip onto its roof. All held breaths were exhaled as Angelo emerged unscathed from the wreckage.
That wasn't going to be the last car to fall victim to the unforgiving track though, Rocker totalled his car during practice but was lucky to get a replacement car from his teammate to continue on. Nonetheless, it was that time of the month for lady luck and she had quite a bone to pick with Rocker and the unlucky soul flipped his teammate's car onto its roof as well later on. Not surprisingly too, that wasn't the last victim of the weekend.
The final day of competition begun with the Top 16 kicking off following some practice in the morning due to the fact that only 21 cars had signed up for the event. That meant that qualifying was to select the Top 16 drivers and move on from there.
The Top 16 consisted of top qualifier Djan, followed by Ah Fai, Hanizam 'Loyai' Hamzah, Hashiguti Anderson, Koh Kok Ho (Ah Boy), Ivan Lau, Tony Angelo, Tan Tat Wei, Mervyn Nakamura, Ariff Johanis, Johan Norman, Evgeny Satukov, Fazreen Ismail (Along), Azrina Jane, Rhenadi Arinton and Michael Gan.
Djan, piloting his regular Bridgestone/FX Open Nissan 180SX, lined up against Team Goodyear's Michael Gan in his Nissan Cefiro A31 with a Skyline R34 facelift. There were plenty of questions asked about the pairing's runs as the judges called for a One More Time (OMT) three times before awarding the win to Djan. The uneasy whispers were brought up because it looked like an easy win for Djan as he opened up a huge lead on his leading run and stuck on Gan's tail on the chase.
Next up was Ah Fai and Rhenadi Arinton. Following his good showing at last year's Goodyear Formula Drift Malaysia 2010, the pressure was all on Ah Fai to prove it wasn't a fluke. This made it a battle of a driver with everything to lose and another with nothing to lose. The first run saw Ah Fai get the advantage as Rhenadi struggled to keep up but that's the funny thing about having nothing to lose as on the next run, Rhenadi went all out, practically grazing the wall at every turn. However, it wasn't enough to make up for the first run and Ah Fai moves on.
It was a battle of Team Goodyear teammates as Loyai found himself squaring off against Azrina Jane. Having put in a new engine just before the event, perhaps all the bugs weren't ironed out as Jane ran into mechanical trouble and Loyai took the win convincingly.
The next battle was between Hashiguti Anderson, the half-Japanese half-Brazilian drifter under the After12 banner, and Along in his neon orange Cefiro A31. It was an unfortunate end to a promising battle as Along understeered after the dip at the exit of the first turn and made headway for the concrete barriers at full steam. The end result was a car halfway up the barriers and looking quite distorted, effectively ending his participation. Thankfully, Along survived with nothing but a bruised ego.
It was then Ah Boy and Satukov, the reigning Russian Drift Series champ, to square it off. Perhaps it was a case of not having enough time to familiarise himself with his borrowed machine but Satukov put in two poor runs and was no match for Ah Boy and his converted pick-up converted Corolla KE70. The reduced weight of Ah Boy's machine allowed it some incredible acceleration mid-drift and it was proving to be quite a nippy car that some of the other drifters were keeping an eye on.
The battle between Ivan Lau and Johan Norman needed a OMT as well before the win was awarded to Ivan.
The second last pairing of the Top 16 was between Tony Angelo, the founder of Drift Alliance, and Team Goodyear's Ariff Johanis. Angelo was behind the wheel of a borrowed AE86 after turning his S14 turtle the day before. It was a tight fight between the two, but on their OMT run, Angelo got a little too close to Ariff while chasing and nudged his rear, throwing them both off their drifts and handing the win to Ariff.
The final Top 16 run saw Tan Tat Wei, donning Team Goodyear colours after jumping ship from Team Bridgestone, lining up next to Mervyn Nakamura of Team Federal. Tat Wei in his rotary-powered AE86 was just too quick and nimble for Mervyn to keep chase and the former pulled away on his lead run and literally glued himself to Mervyn's door on his chase run, handing himself the win.
So onto the Top 8 then and it kicked off with Djan going up against Ah Boy. This time around Djan didn't give the judges any reason to call a OMT as he put in some solid drifting to claim the win. Ah Boy's light and tight machine was no match this time for the Djan.
Next we had Ah Fai and Ivan Lau. Ah Fai once again reinforced his status as one of the top drifters with a strong run, opening up a decent lead and then sticking to Ivan's tail on the following run.
The third tie-up was another all-Goodyear affair between Ariff and Loyai. Some OMTs were called into action and although Loyai straightened up while tailing Ariff on a run, the judges deemed that he had done enough to move on and so it was the end of Ariff's day although he had put in some terrific drifting all weekend.
For the last spot in the semi-finals, it was a toss-up between Hashiguti and Tat Wei. Hashiguti did enough to take the win and put an end to Tat Wei's day.
Now that the final four had been determined, it was down to the wire as the lure of the huge prize purses were within grazing range.
A spot in the final was up for grabs and it was going to be either Djan or Loyai. Both had put in a good run, hence the judges called for a OMT to settle the matter. While Loyai was leading, he almost came to a halt around the island, causing Djan to barely nudge him. The judges awarded the win to Djan.
The last final spot was between Ah Fai and Hashiguti. Ah Fai wasn't playing any games as he left no doubt who the winner was with a superb run. He was once again shadowing Hashiguti while on the chase all the way.
Before the final got on, the third place battle was held between Loyai and Hashiguti. Both the drifters put on a great show but in the end it was Hashiguti's day as Loyai spun at the second turn while tailing.
So onto the final then and there so many things on the line, least of all the RM100,000 winner's purse. The first run saw Djan lead and as has been the norm for the day, Ah Fai was shadowing him like a hawk all the way. Nonetheless, the Prince of Drift kept his composure and held on to a steady lead to the end. On the following run with Ah Fai in the lead, things looked to be very level with a steady gap but just as the duo were rounding the island, Djan mis-shifted and lost momentum, allowing Ah Fai to pull away to victory.
At the end of the day, there were many things to look up to with marked improvements in all the drivers drifting and a baptism of fire for Speed City that is looking good as the new drifting hotspot in town.
