First of all, we would like to announce that the Team Dregs interview which was supposed to have been featured on this website in December 2004 has been postponed to March 2005. Consequently, the Team SC8 interview will also be pushed back to April 2005. The reason for this is that the webmaster (Furlong) had been busy during the month of December 2004 traveling in Malaysia, scouting for new roads to ride, as well as busy planning, organizing, and finalizing the little details pertaining to his first ever OUTLAW street luge event. Enough about that, let's talk about the event!

There were quite a few twists to this 2-day event. Initially, the original plan was to organize the session at Bukit Kiara on Saturday and Bukit Tinggi on Sunday. Abdil and Ivan decided to survey the condition of the road at Bukit Tinggi on Friday, December 31, 2004, prior to running the session there on Sunday. The objective was to check whether the construction developments that were taking place since the last time they rode there in June 2004 was still occurring, and whether it would hamper their plans to ride there on Sunday. So, upon reaching the road at Bukit Tinggi, to their delight, the construction sites looked exactly the same as they did in June 2004. Meaning, there were still no building foundations on the plots of land even though 6 months have already passed! They had brought the buttboards in Ivan's Proton Wira in order to test ride the equipment as well as to familiarize themselves on the course. Ivan took only one run, whereas Abdil took 3 runs. On Abdil's 3rd run however, they encountered security personnel. They were told not to ride there unless they had a permit to use the road for an official event. Not wanting to risk getting caught again on Sunday and getting blacklisted (which means it would be difficult to get a permit the next time they would want to organize an official event), Abdil and Ivan were forced to make a decision. Either cancel the session at Bukit Tinggi on Sunday altogether, or move the session to Bukit Kiara. Canceling the event did not seem to augur well as a valid decision because they would expect a bigger turnout on Sunday (more people were able to make it on Sunday than on Saturday). So they went with the latter decision, even though they had no idea what the conditions would be like at Bukit Kiara since they had not even run Saturday's event! It was then time to play it by ear and see how things go.

The second twist to the event was that Abdil and Ivan decided to change the nature of the session. They were to charge equipment rental fees as well as sell drinks in order to boost revenue and offset costs associated with organizing the event. Instead of keeping the money for themselves, all proceeds from the event would be donated towards helping the victims of the recent tsunami tragedy that struck Malaysia as well as other countries on December 26, 2004.

Anyway, here is the summary of the 2-day event.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 2005

SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 2005

RACE HEATS

The results of this 1st unofficial heat are as follows:

1) Abdil "Furlong" Mahdzan (4 points)

2) Budiman "Chino" Ariff (3 points)

3) Ivan Chen (2 points)

4) Wong Kok Jen @ KJ (1 point)

After the first heat, everyone realized how cool that run was and wanted to do it again, at least one more time, before calling it a day and giving the beginners a chance to ride the entire course. As usual, everyone got lined up at the start line. Chase truck driver Muiz also played starter and gave the riders the signal to go! KJ, riding the light-weight buttboard, had the advantage and secured the lead at the start. However, Furlong, with his experienced competitive push, managed to outpush both Chino and Ivan and even caught up to KJ. Again, KJ braked too early approaching checkpoint 1, allowing Furlong to pass him on the left. Chino and Ivan then later passed KJ coming out of checkpoint 2 on the straight. Furlong, who essentially had the lead, was 5 seconds in front of everyone at checkpoint 4 and was already in the homestretch. Then, the other 3 riders started taking the turn at checkpoint 4 simultaneously. Chino was leading the 3-man pack, followed closely by Ivan, with KJ being on the extreme left and on the inside of the turn. Chino and Ivan went wide and onto the grass, then both riders managed to swing themselves back onto the tarmac. It would seem that KJ would come in dead last again until Ivan suddenly got the wobbles and spun around 180 degrees in front of Chino, throwing out an arm and a leg, knocking Chino's helmet in the process. Both riders crashed, and KJ took advantage of the carnage to gleefully pass by. Chino and Ivan basically had a crash restart but they were no longer in competitive mode, cruising past the finish line together.

The results of the 2nd heat:

1) Abdil "Furlong" Mahdzan (4 points)

2) Wong Kok Jen @ KJ (3 points)

3) Budiman "Chino" Ariff & Ivan Chen (tie) (2 points)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Organizer / THP racer Abdil "Furlong" Mahdzan and co-organizer Ivan Chen would like to thank the following people for coming to show their support on this eventful day:

Co-instructor KJ, finish line marshall Zaid Fitri, ex-THP rider Budiman "Chino" Ariff, chase truck driver Muiz, Sukeats and Sanjit from KJRollers, course workers Ly Mun, Hafiz, Nisha, Adrian and Alan from Raleigh International Kuala Lumpur, participant Girlieen, producer / host Nur Akhtar, cameraman Aman and director En Yusof (who brought along his son Iglue and daughter Liyana) from Malaysia.tv! as well as scratch DJ Yazid.