August 27, 2018

Urban Touring Series Rd4 – Report

Round 4 of the Urban Touring Series was run this past weekend under scorching conditions at the rooftop circuit at the Singapore-based Urban PlaySpace. A smaller than usual field took to the start, but, with all the championship contenders in attendance, a highly competitive race was assured. In Saturday’s practice, it was PY Tang, Sean Lee and Dominic Quek that set the pace for the rest. Come race day, it was the same trio leading the way in qualifying. In Q1, PY Tang (ARC) drew first blood in the battle on new tyres, TQ-ing the round by almost 3 secs over Dominic Quek (Xray). PY would repeat in Q2, but by a significantly smaller margin of just 0.7s over Dominic. In Q3, Dominic finally managed to TQ – by 0.3s over PY – a qualifying round. In the final round of qualifying, it was the orange-white car of Dominic again who TQ-ed by a 0.5s margin. With two of the four qualifying rounds counting, PY would secure overall TQ by virtue of his faster Q1 time. Dominic would have to settle for a P2 start in the A-main, with Sean Lee (TRF) starting P3.

On to the finals, and first up was the B-main bump-up race and it was Sebastian Lee (Tamiya) and Joe Lam (Yokomo) who joined the top-6 qualifiers who made the A-main directly. In A-main leg 1, PY had an early spin-out which Dominic quickly capitalised on to take the lead. Now in 2nd, PY had the faster car but still had to find a way past Dominic who was keeping the door shut throughout. PY managed, at one point, to nudge past Dominic but he was unable to make it stick, and Dominic was able to quickly take back the lead. Dominic held on for 5-mins to eventually take the win by a narrow 0.5s. Sean finished 3rd. In A-main leg 2, PY this time had a clean start and manage to pull away for a relatively easy win by some 1.6s. With Dominic finishing 2nd, the overall winner would now be determined in leg 3.

The third and final A-main would go down as one of the most eventful and exhilarating finals seen at Urban. The field got off to a clean start, with PY holding on to his lead. Over the first lap, it was clear that Dominic’s car now had better corner speed, with the driver in full-on race mode. At the end of lap-2, a small error by PY clipping a dot just before the timing loop opened up a small gap for Dominic. Needing no invitation, Dominic was able to gun for the gap on the inside and emerge with the lead. While PY would still hold on for the lead down the straight, young Sean sensed blood and went for the pass around the sweeper. As Sean overshot the hairpin, PY would regain 2nd. However, in the next turn, PY again had a dot-meeting and Sean and Esmail Apandi (Yokomo) both swept past. PY managed to regain 3rd from Esmail in the next turn. All these played to Dominic’s advantage as he had now pulled out a larger lead. The overtaking action was still not done, as Esmail managed to squeeze past PY at the timing loop, but PY took it back at the end of the straight. At this point, we were still just 1min into the race. The duel between Esmail and PY continued, and they were now joined by Hasron Robana (Xray). Contact between PY and Esmail a few laps later opened the door for Hasron to move up into 3rd. PY would eventually regain 3rd from Hasron who finished 4th after holding off Esmail. With the win in leg 3, Dominic would secure the overall win in one of his most hard-fought of victories.

The final round of the 2018 season of the Urban Touring Series is scheduled for November 4th.

Source: Urban PlaySpace [facebook.com]



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