flipbarkids

Since 2006, I've been driving on tight B roads, usually BT and Genting but occasionally Ulu Yam or Semenyih. They're quite safe by Malaysian standards and relatively traffic free so it offers enough space to get up to speed and practice car control. Admittedly getting this wrong can result in pain and damage, but I've never pushed my abilities (or car) beyond physical limits (well, I don't anyway, I can't speak for all of us). I don't overtake on blind corners etc, so there's no annoyance or danger to other road users.

Another reason I do this is because it reveals how well a car handles. Car handling can vary greatly. Front wheel drives, rear wheel drives, four wheel drives, hatchbacks, sedans, coupes, heavy and light cars... they all have different driving characteristics and different limits of grip. There's no point pushing a car hard on a highway if all it will show is straight line speed an acceleration. That's not a basis for comparison.

In the last few months, we've started timing and taking videos of each run in order to chart progression. Admittedly it's not very scientific; some are done in the wet, some in the dry, some during the day and some at night, almost never with the same car so it is hard to do a direct comparison. I suppose aiming for a target is the most we can do in terms of seeing how far we've come. However, at times it's impossible to get a clean time because of traffic... but some things can't be helped.

The target for BT's downhill tends to stand at 5 minutes and uphill stands at 5:15. I've actually beaten these times before, but without a proper reading from a GPS, it's hard to prove I ever did... That and the fact that some fool got in my way on the way down (that run really opened my eyes up to how amazing quattro was). It was mostly self satisfaction.

Anyway, my latest (clean) run uphill yielded a:

Time of : 5:00
Average speed of : 86 km/h
Top speed of 143 km/h

and my latest (messy) downhill run had a:

Time of 5:08
Average speed of 84 km/h
Top speed of 152 km/h

... which doesn't really make sense considering the downhill should be faster. Well, the uphill was done in an A5 and the downhill was done in a 535i with a slow Sentra in the way... I figure without the Sentra blocking me, I could have pulled a sub 5 minute time.

The weekend's here once again! Have fun people.

As for the picture, view it in large size and look at the rear window. Lulz.

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