KUALA TERENGGANU: The final race day of the Vios Challenge Race series, being held at the Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium in Kuala Terengganu had heated action with racers taking to the 1.65km street circuit in a last ditch effort to take home more points during the start of the season.

The race starts with each category's top half finishers switching positions from Day 1, putting Diana Danielle down in fifth position for the Promotional Class while Wany Hasrita gets the opportunity to lead the pack.

Additionally, Shawn Lee started down in eighth position as Patrick Tam takes the lead for the Sporting Class while William Ho gets relegated to sixth place and Syafiq Ali is placed at the top for the Super Sporting Class.

Also, the starting order of each class was reversed with the Super Sporting Class becoming the first category to start the race day.

As the four red lights went out, third-place starter Keifli Othman (63) - in trying to defend his starting position,  squeezed fourth-place starter Kenny Lee Wan Yuen (38) into the wall and out of contention causing the safety car to be dispatched for the next two laps.

The collision held up fifth-place starter Boy Wong (21), who managed to avoid the incident, but allowed sixth-place starter William Ho (39) into third place as Syafiq Ali (7) lead the pack with Mark Darwin (16) following closely behind.

It was back to racing on lap five and as soon as the safety entered the pits, Mark made an attempt to take the lead, but a mistake allowed William by and was subsequently relegated to third.

Two laps later, William managed to close the gap and apply pressure on Syafiq, who remained unphased, while the rest of the pack began to spread out and settle into their respective race pace.

After the full 22 laps of racing, Syafiq managed to cross the line to pick up his first win for the season with William coming in second 1.805 seconds later and Mark settling for third 4.38 seconds from the winner.

Next up was the Sporting Class with beatboxer Shawn Lee (6) starting in the middle of the pack in eighth place.

At the start of the race, pole sitter Patrick Tam (13) made a good start to maintain his lead, but it wasn't the same for second place starter Vincent Ng (68) as Dannies Ng Khai (93) in third slipped by down the startstraight.

By lap six, Shawn had managed to move up the ladder into fifth place, but Brendon Lim Boon Yew (86) fought back hard and outbraked the beatboxer on the inside going into turn 11 (the last corner before the start-finish straight) which forced him wide to clip the wall.

The manoeuvre allowed Kenneth Koh Keik Lun (28) to pass Shawn back into seventh place.

Up front, the dramatics continued as Vincent tries to take the lead from Patrick on lap 14. The attempt allowed Dannies to close in on the duo and on the street circuit's last turn, the trio came together, causing Dannies to almost spin out.

By this time, as the dramatics began to build - so did the clouds, which came down hard a lap later and prompted the safety car to be dispatched.

With no overtaking allowed during the safety car, it was pretty much status quo for all the racers who had no choice but to finish in their respective places once the 30-minute time limit was up to complete 21 out of the 22 laps.

This meant that Patrick took the top spot with Dannies in second and Vincent in third.

With the Promotional Class due to start at 3.40pm, the race was delayed by an hour and 20 minutes to allow the track to dry out, while the crew relentlessly worked to clear any large puddles of standing water.

By 5pm, it was back to racing with an almost dried off track and only a few sectors still possessing a small amount of standing water.

This time it would be Wani Hasrita's (8) opportunity to show her mettle by leading the pack for the first time.

But as the red lights went out, Wani's car stalls, allowing second place Akio Takeyama (1) to take the lead with Akim Ahmad (46) close on his tail and Janna Nick (18) in tow.

Meanwhile, crowd favourite Diana Danielle (15) starting in fifth, unfortunately carried too much speed into a turn and hit the wall hard, but managed to limp back into the pits to retire.

By the second lap, Akim and Jana had managed to find a way past Akio, who loses his third place a lap later to Nabil Ahmad (83).



With a cold track and certain sectors still wet, but Akim finds a way to slowly build up his momentum during the race.

Thankfully, Janna was kept busy by Nabil who was hot on her tail with plenty of pressure on the fifth lap.

Somehow, Aiman Tino (77) too had found a way past Akio and even manages to get in on the battle for second place.

Eventually, the pressure made Jana run wide - clipping a wall, and allowed Nabil to go through. The mistake was further compounded when Aiman, who had more momentum out of the corner, managed to get past her as well and now sets his target on Nabil.

From lap eight onwards, there was intense nose-to-tail action coming from Aiman, who made quick work of Nabil to pass him after two laps on lap 10 to move up into second place.

Meanwhile, the scuffles had allowed Akim to build up a considerable lead over the rest and manages to finish the race with a considerable lead with Aiman taking second and Nabil in third.

The Vios Challenge Race series now prepares to continue the much-heated action at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) from Oct 19 to 21. (Day 1 and Day 2).

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