Lemvard Takes Round 5 Win and Championship Lead 15/6/2008   Jack Lemvard took the chequered flag in a hot and action packed Round 5 Asian Touring Car Series race at Sepang International Circuit today. The Thai driver reclaimed the lead in the Championship points table after being on equal points with his great rival, Melvin Choo, going into this race.   As the lights went off for the start of the race, the 20 car grid got off the lines clean and with the top six being positioned in a reverse grid order, with Daniel Amante Gomes in pole, there was a great rush to the first turn.   Following the reverse grid start, Lemvard got to the leading bunch at the first turn and continued to make his way past the leading cars of Henry Ho and Mak Ka Lok before getting Gomes at turns three and four. From there, he pulled a gap away from Choo, who was stuck in the middle of the three Macau drivers before being able to get a clean path.   “My start was good and I think Melvin had a great start as well but he got boxed in. I went on the outside and I passed three cars at the first corner and I was in second. I was lucky because I broke away from Melvin, he was stuck behind all the Hondas.   “By turn 4, I passed into first and pulled out quite a big lead with a seven second gap. Then Melvin started to chase me down. I saw he was quite far behind so I just kept a consistent 1 minute 10.5 and 10.4 seconds so it was quite good. Then we had the back markers and that’s where he caught me quite a lot” said Lemvard during the post race press conference.    Choo managed to catch up to the race leader as the duo began to pass back markers. The Singaporean began to close in on Lemvard at lap 16 and was on his tail at lap 17. He then tried twice to make his move, overtaking once at the first corner and then again at turn three on the next lap, but Choo could not make the moves stick.   “The start for me was good but I was unfortunately boxed in by the cars in front of me, which gave Jack a chance to pull away.   “I worked really hard and I knew we would come up to the back markers, so I was hoping the back markers would affect him more than me. In the end I had a chance to make a couple of moves, it didn’t stick though. At the end, everyone got home safe and it was good racing” said Choo.    Third placed finisher, Henry Ho had a tough time during the race, after managing to overtake the front starting cars, he had a spin on lap three at the last turn. The spin allowed five cars to pass him dropping him down to eighth. He then fought his way back up the ranks to finally finish the race in third.   “At the start, the two cars behind me were really quick, they were two seconds faster than me and the cars in front were on the 15inch tyres giving them a better start. It is a short circuit so it was pretty hard to overtake them. I managed to get to third and then the BMW of Melvin overtook me. I tried to chase him but couldn’t so I just maintained my pace and tried to beat myself by clocking faster times.   “Then I made a mistake at the last corner. I spun and a few cars passed me so I had to give chase. It took me quite a few laps before I managed to claim back my third place” said Ho in closing.    In Division 2, Macau driver Lui Man Kit claimed the win ahead of Malaysian Eric Yeo and Adrian Henry D’Silva.

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Saturday, 14th June, 2008

Asian Touring Car Series - Round 4 Location: Malaysia, Sepang F1 Circuit, North track Team: Liqui Molly Engstler/ Ocean1Tower Weather Condition: Sunny, 31 celcius Qualify Session Saturday 14:00 - 14:30 1st. Melvin Choo Kwok Ming 1:09.780 2nd. Jack Lemvard 1:09.902 3rd. Ho Wai Kun 1:12.235 4th. Lui Man Kit 1:13.695 5th. Daniel Amante Gomes 1:13.894 6th. Mak Ka Lok 1:13.994 7th Eric Yeo Tee Eong 1:14.126 8th Harry Chai Cheon Wooi 1:14.134 total 20 Drivers

Race Report

Jack qualified 2nd postion with his Bmw 320i E46 for this race right behind Melvin Choo in his Brand new Bmw320si E90.

Jack had a good start for the race and was able to pass Melvin in turn one to snatch the lead. By the end of lap 1 Jack had build a small gap from the rest of the field, but after the first few laps were gone Melvin started to catch Jack very fast. Already on lap 5 Jack had to start to drive defensive down the straight's. Melvin was extremely quick down the straight and was able to pull alongside Jack underbraking.

On lap 6 Melvin passed Jack on the end of the straight but Jack didn't give up and took Melvin back right away. Coming into turn 4, a tight right hander Melvin again was alongside Jack. This time Jack was unable to hold his position and had to settle into 2nd place. After that Jack pressured Melvin for the rest of race but because of the difference on the straights it made it really hard for Jack to get passed Melvin. Melvin drove a really good race and made no mistakes at all through the whole race.

In the end Melvin finished first and Jack second. Both driver's have the same amount of points in the championship so it should be an interesting year.

Race Result:
1st. Melvin Choo Kwok Ming, 20 Laps, total 23:44.261
2nd. Jack Lemvard, Diff.: 0.662
3rd. Ho Wai Kun, Diff.: 1:09.262

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Thursday, 15th May, 2008

Asian Touring Car Series - Sepang
Lemvard Takes Pole

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Saturday-Sunday, 10-11th May, 2008 Supercar Thailand Sakaew Qualifying: Last year we didn’t get to qualify for this race due to heavy rain but this year we did, and we did it well. First lap I went slow to save the new tires for when I was going to push. Next lap I pushed all I could but missed a gear coming into the chicane so that cost me a couple of tenths and on the last corner made a small mistake too so I knew that I could have gone a lot faster than I did. So I went slow one more lap to cool the car down to push the next lap again. Half way through the lap the engine started popping at 7000 rpm after that I couldn’t put together a proper lap time so I went into the pits. But luckily the first lap was good enough for pole position for the first race. First race: Got an amazing start and after the first 3 corners I was 5 car lengths in front of second place. I pushed for 3 laps and got a big lead and then the engine started to pop again at around 7000 rpm. When the engine pops it feels like the engine looses 50hp. So I started to really push to try pull away because I knew my engine was not working optimal. I thought that my competitors were going to catch me but they didn’t instead I started to pull away, even with a popping engine. 6 laps left and I decided not to push anymore and to save the car because I had built a big enough lead. 1st place by far. Second race: This race was one of the strangest races I have had. The on track fighting we had was great but unfortunately on there was an incident on the last lap that ruined the whole race. In this race they take the second best time from qualifying so I had to start in second place this race. I had an OK start but coming down the first corner I only had around 70% of my brakes working because of new brake pads. So I fell back to third position. Got my way back up into second and caught the guy in first place very fast. I was over a second quicker than him every lap. He managed to block me for around 15 laps and I tried everything to get past him, but he wouldn’t move and he made no mistakes. On the last lap I did see that he went wide in one corner so I decided that its now or never. So I went for the inside, but he closed the door on me and I tried to avoid him, but we collided causing him to spin out and me to continue the race and go on to win it. The stewards favored him a lot over our team so they decided to take the win away from us which I think is unfair since the collision could have been avoidable from his side. The only thing he had to do was give me one more meter on the inside of the corner and we both would have made it. So we won but didn’t…

 

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Saturday-Sunday, 26-27th April, 2008

Honda Civic One Make Race

Saturday morning practice went really great as we set the fastest lap time out of every team that was there so we were very confident about the qualifying. Out of all the teams we were the only one that was in the 1 minute 15’s, and every other was in the 16’s. But right before qualifying it started to rain heavily which made the track very tricky and slippery to drive. Good thing I like driving in the wet, so I didn’t mind. The qualifying is a 30 minute time trial and the organizers take the best lap out of the 30 minutes. I went out and did one quick lap and that already put me in first place. So for the next 29 minutes I decided to cruise around the track just in case someone would beat my time. And of course two laps left in the qualifying someone beat my time because the track was slowly drying up, so on the last lap I pushed really hard and managed to beat their time by over 2 seconds which put me back in first place. First race was a dry race and I was not worried because I know we were the quickest on the track dry or wet. Had a great start only blocked a little in the first corner and second corner to make sure no one would dive for the inside on me. After that I pulled about 5 tenth to a second every lap. At the middle of the race I started to cruise and take it easy because I was already a straight away in front of everyone else. Easy win. Second race was interesting because it rained really hard before the race. But before the race started the rain had already stopped and it was drying out fast. I still had a great start and a superb first lap because I was the only one warming up my tires hard on the rolling lap. The first few laps the person in second was keeping up, so I decided to push even harder, then I started to pull away. It was quite difficult because the track was drying up so we had to choose between wet and dry line, and somewhere in the middle of the race the dry line was quicker than the wet. So the driver who can find the fastest line around the track the quickest in considered a good driver. After around 6 laps I was so far ahead I couldn’t see them in the mirrors anymore so I decided to take it easy and no risk till the end of the race. Easy win again!

Honda Pro Cup Before coming into this race we had been testing for 4 weeks straight so we were confident that we were going to come away from this weekend with a win. But it never turns out the way you want it to. In qualifying it was raining and I came down the straight a little bit faster than I should. I locked the brakes and I couldn’t stop the car anymore and because the first corner is downhill I went even quicker when I locked the brakes into the tire wall. The car was quite damaged but because I did get one lap in I managed to get 6th position for the race. In the warm up lap before the race I went out the car was extremely difficult to drive and I was not confident with the car at all. The first race finally came around and I did not trust the car much. I had an amazing start, started from 6th and by the beginning of first corner I was already in 3rd. I held my position because I was 1st in my class. The car was still very hard to drive but I managed my way around. On lap 3 the engine started to pop and the torque went away by around 30%. 4th place started catching me and pressuring me. Then on lap 5 my steering wheel fell of in the middle of a chicane! I was lucky I didn’t hit the wall and managed to control it. I quickly went into the pits to fix it. Went out again on lap 10 and on lap 11 it fell off again, so I decided that I didn’t want to finish the race. Race two came around and I was dreading to get in the car. Right before the race it started to rain so I was a bit relieved because if it is dry I would have to push the car to its limit and I was afraid something might break of or fall off again. I started 6th had a really bad start, don’t know why but the front tires wouldn’t stop spinning. But finally got away from the grid, came down first corner and the car would not turn at all. 3 cars passed me by then, but I would not give up so I pushed all the way through the race. I had rain tires on the car but it felt like I was on slicks, it was extremely difficult to drive. In the end I managed to get top 5 so I was quite pleased with that. Next race when our car will be working we will be there on top again!