| Mals
Thailand Adventure
On Jan 19 2008 Mal Rose's International endurance racing continued.
The event is known as the "Supercar Thailand
Six Hour Endurance Race" held at the 2.4km Bira circuit
at Pattaya.
The race was for Super 1500 & Super 2000 cars from all the "one
make" series held in Thailand.
Cars are Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi etc. All cars racing on a control
BF Goodridge radial tyre.
The driving team was all Australian, with expat Mike
Freeman heading the team with car owner Paul Kenny.
Mal Rose was the invited driver with
much International experience to help the Thailand based team.
From the opening practice session , Mal was the clear leader of
the team setting the fastest times on the challenging hillside track
built as the only permanent race track in Thailand in the early
1960s.
The race was kicked off at 2.00pm from a rolling start with all
25 cars making a safe and clean start on what is described as a
combination as an Amaroo Park / Lakeside Raceway style racetrack.
Mal was asked to qualify the car, a Toyota Vios and by the rules
had to start the race being the fastest driver in the team.
Each driving stint was only 50 min each as the high humidity in
the Asian country took its toll on the inexperienced.
At the first pit stop to hand over to car owner Paul
Kenny , Mal was 5th outright and 2nd in class.
Before Paul had finished his stint, the gearbox had broken 3rd gear
leaving no option than to miss this gear and race in only 2nd &
4th.
After Mike Freeman took over, the driving style was changed to suit
this problem and found the lap times were only 2 sec slower.
All was still going well with the Toyota team being just out of
the top 10 cars.
After 3 hours of racing more trouble as the front wheel parted from
the car with all the studs breaking off. This took the Thailand
mechanics just 45 mins to repair and back into the race.
As the race went into the dark Mal & Mike were able to improve
the lap times even with no 3rd gear to still finish 10th overall.
At 8.00 pm all was over for another International event and plans
set for a return in 2009.
For further information:
Mal Rose
0428449414
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