After a funny incident with a dopey taxi driver the night before. (My advise is if you take a taxi, please check everything before you let the driver begin the journey, BE VERY DETERMINED TO GET OFF IF YOU FEEL SOMETHING IS WRONG). We arrive back on the FD venue early in the morning. Our call was to get lined up at 8.15am ready for practice commence at 8.30am. Since in our team Ray was the only one who got into the PK rounds, along with Ian Yeung from Hong Kong. There was only one focus, to get full support to Ray for him to perform his best in the actual PK round.
The morning practice start with a few wet patches from the morning spray, but it’s nothing major, there were no big puddles to look out for, as the morning pulls through, I was analyzing both Ray and his opponent’s (Tan Tet Wei, hereafter TTW) driving line, speed and angle. Seriously TTW had an upper hand over Ray with his all too familiar machine the AE86 with NOS. The competitive advantage over Ray are as follows: – 
– His acceleration off the line and into the initiation point was faster by a noticeable margin, distance of 2-3 car length.
– The corning speed tolerance especially in the 1st corner was much high with TTW’s car as it was about 200kg lighter (20%)
The above disadvantages against Ray, will be his biggest challenge in battle at Top 32 round. At the end of the morning practice session Ray has got to grips with the track, and he was able to adjust his lines accordingly. We discussed with strategies that was possible, and was happy with the way things were turning out.
We were waiting for McD to be delivered, and there might be someone who forgot the time that we were supposed to be out for the tandem battles. So we got ourselves some hotdogs and patties and sandwich from the food counters, like all event food counters, you always kinda regret ” Why didn’t I just wait for the McD instead.” Cold soggie food was the last thing we needed… hahah. Anyway, that would do.
There was a brief shower before the top 32 battle, the track condition was dry with wet patches again. Ray’s battle was about the 10th battle, it sure was a long wait for the drivers. 
Engine starts, the cars line up with Ray Mak leading first. At the end of the straight Ray only had less than 1/2 car’s length lead into the first left hander. Drift initiated, hand brake, steering and throttle syncronized to get the car into the right angle for the rear clipping point, Wei was not side by side with Ray, as predicted that Wei’s first corner was marginally faster than Rays. On the flip of the SWei stuck right with Ray… advantage Wei. 
The car line up again, Wei now leads, the difference in pick up caused Ray’s car to be around 3 car length behind Wei’s. The lead means that Ray cannot stick with Wei for the run, another advantage for Wei ended Ray’s tandem challendge.
The other driver in the top 32 representing Hong Kong, Ian Yeung, also had his run finished at top 32. 
The rest of the battles are featured in the articles as stated in the previous post. Our team although did not have the result that we really wanted, but we’ve also learnt a lot, especially me who was observing all the battles from the spotter’s location, and we’ll be coming back in action in season 2010′. See you guys soon.
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