The newest addition to the pinnacle of Thai motorsport’, Super Car Class 3-GTC, continued to justify its addition to the Thailand Super Series (TSS) programme with two exciting races on the return trip to Buriram that saw the action continuing to hot up and the standard of drivers, cars and teams is certainly growing fast as this category finds its feet.

Meanwhile in Super 2000 the pace never slows down for a second, just as the fans have grown to expect, and two more thrillers were dished up. In fact both Super Car Class 3-GTC and Super 2000 threw up different winning driver names and car brands for each of their races.

The first Super Car Class 3-GTC race victory was claimed by Khun Naputt Assakul in the sleek little Ginetta G55, he’s now starting to shape up into the driver to beat for the title this year, while Race 2 saw Khun Grant Supaphong take victory with a faultless drive in the Krating Daeng Mitsubishi Evo X and when this car runs reliably he seems unbeatable.

The first Super 2000 race win went to Khun Munkong Sathienthirakul who never looked like being headed in his pacey Honda Civic FD and he stamped clearly his mark on the proceedings. He had looked fast at the season opener too and so that was something of an overdue win. Stand-in driver at Singha Motorsport Team Thailand, Khun Carlo Van Dam, got the closest but in the end the Dutch professional driver had to settle for the runners up spot while third place went to Singha TT Motorsport’s Khun Chayut Yangpichit.

Championship points leader Khun Jack Lemvard bided his time in the first race in the ballast laden Vattana Motorsport BMW E90 and by hanging on for P4 neatly lined himself up on the front row for the second race, thanks to the top five reverse grid, and with some of his weight being shed he powered away from the pack to claim his third win of the year and in doing so start to edge towards the title. Khun Chayut went one better than the first race, he turned in another superb drive to nab the runners up spot while Khun Pasarit Phromsombat continued his fine form with third place.

Super 2000 has a long-standing reputation for providing the closest fought racing in Thailand and this year is proving to be no different. Super Car Class 3-GTC meanwhile is growing fast in stature and also commanding tight racing from very varied but evenly matched racecars. Strength in depth and competitive racing are the hallmarks of both these popular categories.

Super Car Class 3-GTC: Saturday

Khun Narasak Ittritpong was in determined mood for Saturday’s opening race and his best qualifying lap in 1:46.819 had put the Vattana Motorsport driver onto pole position in the fast-but-fragile #59 Mitsubishi Evo, the team seemingly never stopping working on the powertrain of the car all week.

He was more than a second clear of Khun Naputt Assakul in the Ginetta G55 while the second row of the grid comprised of Khun Chayut Yangpichit, who was back behind the wheel of the quick ‘Evo’ he raced here last November, and Khun Daychapon Toyingcharoen in the highest placed of the two Krating Daeng entries in the race as his teammate Khun Grant Supaphong would be starting right from the back of the grid.

There were no errors at the rolling start as Khun Narasak led the Class 3-GTC field away from pole with Khun Naputt assuming P2, these two already looking like they were going to be the early pacesetters of the field. Behind them Khun Daychapon got the jump on Khun Chayut for P3 as they went side-by-side into Turn 1 while the much improved Mazda RX-8 of Khun Thanapol Thongchua was already locked up right on their tail.

Already from the back of the grid, Khun Grant was making up places as he looked to get his championship challenge back on track; he needed a big points score. He quickly got past the Subarus of Khun Pinet Piyaoui and Khun Kraingkrai Woraratanatham and the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup of Khun Sontaya Kunplome.

Less lucky was another expected front-runner, the #93 Vattana Motorsport Ferrari 430 Challenge of Khun Settasit Boonyakiat. He would start late almost a lap down and would play no part in the unfolding of the race, Khun Settasit eventually retiring the ‘red’ car after completing 6 laps.

There was an early Safety Car deployed due to an incident in Class 2-GTM (all three Super Car classes were combined at this round) and that saw Khun Narasak first with Khun Naputt, Khun Chayut, Khun Thanapol and Khun Daychapon rounding out the top five as the field trundled round.

When racing resumed the battle continued. Khun Grant’s charge for the front though came to a terminal halt after 6 laps after he suffered a flywheel problem.

The race eventually settled down and when the checkered flag fluttered after 14 laps and 28m45s of racing it was Khun Naputt who had taken another smooth tidy victory in the little Ginetta. Added to the win he claimed in the opening round back in May that made it two wins out of three for the year so far, while doubling his points tally to 40 and putting him into the provisional lead of the championship points classification overnight with one race to go. Job well done by Khun Naputt and the Painkiller team.

The driver was pleased with how the race had turned out. “I felt really good about the car since I qualified almost 3 seconds faster than my best time last race [thanks] to set up tips from Bo, the race engineer from Singha Motorsport,” Khun Naputt said. “[I] started out quite well and drove very consistently for the whole race and it must be some kind of record because I didn’t spin once. My team and I are very happy with the result.”

Just over seven seconds down the road was Khun Chayut while the top three was completed by Khun Daychapon who had a strong race and with his teammate Khun Grant dropping out the Skyline R32 driver picked up a very useful helping of points for the Krating Daeng Racing Team.

Four and a half seconds back was Khun Thanapol after a very impressive drive. The Rotary Revolution engineers’ have upgraded the striking car since the opening round and those changes paid off immediately, Khun Thanapol picking up his first podium finish in the green and black #17 Mazda RX-8.

The final podium step went to Khun Sontaya in the #8 Porsche 997 GT3. He led the championship going into the weekend and the 8 points he added from the first race would help his tally, although he just slipped behind Khun Naputt in the provisional overall standings overnight. Khun Sontaya, who was also swapping into his Porsche 991 GT3 Cup in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia which was on the TSS support programme, had an unfussy race to the checkered flag to claim P5 albeit he was half a minute back from Khun Thanapol.

Sixth went to Khun Kraingkrai in the #71 A Motorsport-run Subaru BRZ who was happy to improve his laptimes over the opening weekend and he now had a manual transmission in the car to replace the production slush box that he’d been force to use back in May due to the short notice of the project.

Then came the factory-run Toyota 86 of Khun Suttipong Smittachartch while the final finisher, a lap down, was the Subaru Impreza of Khun Pinet, who had been working his way through turbochargers all week in the rebuilt car. With a compromised turbo in the car and forced to run low boost Khun Pinet was happy to get to the finishline on his return to racing after a year out, albeit he was a lap down, and collect his first points in Class 3-GTC.

Finally, there was heartbreak for Khun Narasak in the Vattana Motorsport Evo. Despite leading the race from start to finish he was later excluded from the results as his mechanics had chopped through the engine and gearbox seals when they fixed the drivetrain problems he had suffered during practice and qualifying. It just wasn’t his day.

Super 2000: Saturday

Khun Munkong got very cleanly away from pole position to lead the pack into Turn 1 and it would be a lead he would hold onto for the next 12 laps without anyone else applying too much pressure.

At the green lights Khun Jack struggled for traction under the heavy load in the BMW and slipped behind Khun Chayut and Khun Carlo as the field headed for the first hairpin. By the end of the first lap Khun Jakthong Navasoopanich had also picked off the ‘heavyweight’ BMW and demoted the winner of the first two races of the year down to P5. Behind them there was a couple of car lengths back to a three-way scrap between Khun Ekprawat Petcharak, Khun Pasarit Phromsombat and Khun Kantadhee Kusiri with Khun Naiyanobh Bhirombhakdi next up.

That was the order when the Safety Car was deployed after the two TBN MK IHere Civic FDs of Khun Nattachak Hanjitkasem and Khun Wijak Lertprasertpakorn clashed at Turn 5 and the stricken cars needed lifting away.

Meanwhile down at the backend of the field there was a new name for fans to get used to in Super 2000, Khun Narasak Ittritpong in Vattana Motorsport’s Civic FD. This car has been idle since it was last seen in action at the Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival at the end of 2013 and it arrived in Buriram in a very much unsorted state.

Unable to turn a wheel during qualifying the Civic stuttered its way onto the track to start the race at the back of the grid. Khun Narasak who certainly needs no introduction to this model of racecar as he was one of the stars of the now-defunct ‘Civic One Make Race’ started to pick up places over the first couple of laps but by the time the field slowed down behind the Safety Car the body-in-white Civic was puffing smoke and he was gone after just six laps. A disappointing start in Super 2000 for this driver and with the engine terminal the #13 car wouldn’t reappear for Sunday’s final race.

When the Safety Car went back into the pitlane Khun Carlo took a quick look at Khun Munkong into Turn 3 as the race leader locked up the brakes, but there wasn’t enough of an opportunity and the top two remained the same.

Behind them Khun Chayut in P3 drifted into no mans land while in P4 Khun Jakthong started blowing out tell tale blue plumes of power steering fluid. The smallest driver in the field was now having to manhandle his Toyota Altis around and as he ran wide he began dropping places, first to Khun Jack then to Khun Ekprawat and then to Khun Pasarit and Khun Naiyanobh on the final turn as he drifted well onto the run off and then Khun Kantadhee also took advantage of the flailing Altezza.

Khun Pasarit was also drifting back, he was deposed by Khun Naiyanobh and then became embroiled in an entertaining battle with Khun Kantadhee, the two clashing through Turn 5 with the latter recovering from a slide as they raced up the short hill. That close quarters tussle would continue all the way to the finishline.

After 12 laps Khun Munkong took the checkered flag with 2.7 seconds in hand over Khun Carlo in the Singha Motorsports Team Thailand Civic FD. Khun Chayut had something of a lonely race in the Singha TT Motorsport Honda DC 5 as he was seven seconds adrift of Khun Carlo in front of him but ten seconds ahead of Khun Jack behind, the latter claiming P4. The Dutchman might have missed out on the win but he had the consolation of setting the fastest lap of the race in 1:51.835.

For the championship leader, Khun Jack, it was an excellent result as he not only picked up a dollop of points but planted himself on the front row for Race 2 thanks to the top five being reversed and with a chunk of the weight that had slowed him down due to come off overnight it would set him up to make a charge on Sunday.

Khun Naiyanobh, who had a smooth and steady race, bagged the final step of the podium as well as P2 in Class B, and crucially that allowed him to claim pole for Sunday’s race thanks to the reverse grid. Sixth and seventh places went to Khun Kantadhee and Khun Pasarit, the pair engaging in some real close quarters fighting and they were separated by just half a second at the finishline. For Khun Kantadhee it was a pleasing result after he had really struggled with his new car at the season opener back in May where he was forced to run at the tail end of the field.

Khun Jakthong held on to claim P8 as he battled to steer his car without the aid of power steering. Then came the Civic FD’s of Khun Thanavud Bhirombhakdi and Khun Rudolf Yu who took third and fourth in Class B respectively while the top twelve was wrapped up by Khun Chen Jian Hong in the surviving factory-run #58 Altis and the #45 Civic FD of Khun Artit Masathirakul.

After showing much early promise and running as high as fifth place Khun Ekprawat was hit by a drive-through penalty and eventually came home P13, with Khun Jetsada Yangpichit next up to Claim Class C honours. The classified finishers were completed by Khun Issares Chirapongsananurak in P15, the runner up in Class C, Khun Phatwit Phayakcso, Khun Vasu Saksirivetkul, third in Class C, and finally in P18 the debuting Toyota Altezza of Khun David Yupensak who completed 9 laps and that was enough to be classified.

The ‘DNF’ list started with Khun Poramin Meesamanyont (Honda DC 5), who departed on the eighth lap with a broken driveshaft, the same tour seeing the demise of Khun Narasak’s Vattana Civic FD with terminal engine problems. Khun Paritat Bulbon dropped out after three laps with a cracked header in the unique turbodiesel VW Golf Mk V, Khun Pure Hongsapan in the second factory Altis had a fresh engine from Japan fitted in the car, but was however gone on the second lap with electrical problems, while the two TBN MK IHere Civic FDs were opening lap retirements.

Super Car Class 3-GTC: Sunday

At the green lights it was the Ginetta of Khun Naputt who took command, ahead of the Mitsubishi of Khun Chayut, the Mazda of Khun Thanapol, the Porsche of Khun Sontaya and the Toyota of Khun Suttipong. From the back of the grid the two Krating Daeng Racing Team drivers’, Khun Grant and Khun Daychapon, were already starting to make up ground.

Khun Naputt didn’t lead for very long as he had a spin in the Ginetta through Turn 3 and that elevated Khun Chayut into P1 although Khun Thanapol was already looking to be one of the stars of the race as he nipped through past the Evo and into the lead at Turn 1 the second time around.

The Ginetta driver recovered well to slot back into the running order in P6. However he wasn’t going to be around for much more than another lap as oil had been dumped by one of the Class 2-GTM runners which were sharing the track in this combined race and Khun Naputt was the unlucky victim, he went spinning off, hit the barriers side on between Turn 7 and 8 and his race was over.

“I started the race even better than the day before,” Khun Naputt explained afterwards. “At the second corner the more powerful cars in my class caught up with me and I over speed into the corner and spin. After that it was a high speed aggressive chase for [the] front role and I moved up four places [but] after I over committed into another corner or it maybe was the oil on the track I ended up spun into [the] guardrail and my race was over.”

The Safety Car was quickly called out and that bunched the pack up, it also allowed the Krating Daeng drivers to close in further and after racing resumed Khun Grant and Khun Daychapon were both able to jump Khun Thanapol for the leading positions although the Mazda driver made a great pass back of the Skyline to regain P2.

With two more Safety Car periods the opportunity for a lot of pure racing was negated and that certainly played into the hands of Khun Grant as he claimed the win in the fast but overheating prone Evo. The race “went smoothly,” he said afterwards.

Khun Thanapol bagged the runners up spot give the Rotary Revolution-built Mazda RX-8 its best ever result in Super Car, all coming after a race when he had be forced to fight to secure that finishing position. “We’re really delighted with the weekend,” said Team Manager Khun Ma afterwards. “We have made some changes and upgrades since the last race and that’s improved the car and there is for sure more to come. We originally started racing to prove that Rotary power is reliable for racing, we have proved that with no engine failures in Super Car, now we have to push to get more out of the car and we also have plans to enter a second car.”

Third place went to Khun Daychapon to deliver Krating Daeng an excellent 1-3 result, something that had looked a lot less likely at the start when they were at the back. This team is now looking very promising for the Teams’ title.

Khun Chayut took fourth place to make it a double podium for the ‘returning’ Evo. The TT Motorsport owner had a solid race but admitted that the Safety Car periods had exposed the car’s current weakness – grunt.

“It’s just about the power under the rolling starts as I only have 300 horsepower so not that good and at every rolling start I have a big problem,” he explained. But the car that has returned to Thailand from close season work Japan is certainly improved all round and the final pieces in the jigsaw will soon be slotted in to make this a potent racing machine. “I’m very happy with the handling of the car and the next race there will be more power on the car so everything hopefully will be better,” Khun Chayut added.

Fifth went to Khun Sontaya who also enjoyed a double podium and that made it four trips to the rostrum out of the four races held so far this year. That highly consistent form is keeping him right in the title fight, in fact he left Buriram just 2 points off the top of the provisional standings. With full race distance reliability still being an outstanding issue for many of the racecars in Class 3-GTC to resolve, the bullet-proof nature of Porsche’s 997 GT3 Cup is really playing into his hands, even if raw power isn’t all there.

The final classified finisher was Khun Kraingkrai who claimed his third straight P6 in the unique BRZ, an excellent run of form for the new driver to Super Car who is steadily developing his machine race by race. His first trip to the podium isn’t far away now.

The ‘DNF’ list kicked off with Khun Pinet who slunk back into the pits at the end of the first lap in the Subaru Impreza. Khun Naputt ended up sideways on in the barriers on the third lap while during the early part of the race Khun Narasak pottered round in the Vattana Motorsport Evo, vastly down on power and unable to compete with the front-runners, before retiring at the end of five laps. “The rubber intercooler hosepipe came out, there was no boost and no power,” he explained afterwards. The final DNF went to Khun Suttipong who dropped out after 6 laps while the Ferrari of Khun Settasit was a non-starter.

A win apiece for Khun Grant and Khun Naputt added to the win they each scored at the season opener move them up to the top of the standings at the halfway point in the season with 40 points each in the unofficial standings. Just two points adrift is Khun Sontaya thanks to a clean sweep of four trips to the podium while Khun Daychapon (34), Khun Chayut (33) and Khun Thanapol (31) make it six drivers covered by just 9 points. The title fight is wide open and looks set to go right to the wire in Bangsaen.

Super 2000: Sunday

Lugging his car round in Saturday’s race, Khun Jack had, crucially, achieved his main objective, to achieve a top five finish, nipping into the final classification at P4. That meant he would line up the BMW on the front row alongside polesitter Khun Naiyanobh. The difference between the first and second race though would be the championship leader would shed 30 kg of ‘success’ ballast for the second outing and that could be enough for him to take the fight for P1 to his rivals this time.

Khun Jack had won the opening two races of the year to arrive in Buriram for the return trip with a maximum points score, add in the 10 points he’d scored on Saturday and a healthy score in the final race would see the Vattana Motorsport driver heading to Bira Circuit next month with the Super 2000 title his to loose.

The game plan worked superbly as Khun Jack took the lead of the race early on and held it to the finishline to make it three wins from the four races so far this year and in fact four trips to the podium from four. He also set the fastest lap of the race in 1:52.379. He’s certainly taking the ‘success ballast’ in his stride and at the halfway point in season it looks like Khun Jack can virtually switch to cruise mode in the final run in to the prestigious title.

The BMW driver was helped though by problems besetting some of the fastest runners; Race 1 winner Khun Munkong hit early engine issues and had to fight his way back up the order while Khun Naiyanobh and Khun Jakthong were gone after just a lap. Disappointingly too, Khun Jack’s fast teammate, Khun Narasak, was a non-starter thanks to terminal engine problems in Vattana’s Civic FD.

When the lights turned green for the start Khun Naiyanobh controlled the pack into Turn 1 with Khun Chayut getting the jump on the heavy BMW to take P2 and Khun Jack tucking in behind but ahead of the fast starting Khun Pasarit who went up the middle between Khun Kantadhee and Khun Munkong, the latter fading off the line with an engine problem. Khun Jakthong also had a good start to push past the Team Eakie-run 86 of Khun Kantadhee.

Khun Chayut, Khun Jack and Khun Pasarit were locked together in the rundown to Turn 3 with the BMW passing the DC 5 under braking into the hairpin to move into P2. Khun Jack wasn’t hanging around and he got past Khun Naiyanobh just two turns later while Khun Jakthong, latching onto the back of the front battle, demoted Khun Chayut into P4 into Turn 8. By the time they came down the hill to Turn 3 on the second lap Khun Jakthong got on the brakes late and tried to dive up the inside of Khun Naiyanobh; however the pair clashed, both cars sliding off the track and becoming lodged on the runoff on the outside of the hairpin and that saw the Safety Car deployed.

As the pack formed up behind the Safety Car Khun Jack led the way from Khun Chayut, Khun Pasarit and Khun Thanavud who had been another winner over the first lap. Khun Kantadhee assuming P6 and Khun Ekprawat in P7 were next two up before a stunning opening lap from the #25 Singha Cosmo Civic FD saw Khun Kittipol Pramoj Na Ayudhya move up from the back of the grid into an impressive P7 by the time the yellow flags were waved. Khun Chen, Khun Phatwit and Khun Wijak completed the top ten at that point. Further back Khun Munkong’s engine was back up to speed and he was playing catch up with the pack, this Safety Car period playing into his hands as he closed the deficit up.

When the race resumed there was a three-way tussle for the lead between Khun Jack, Khun Chayut and Khun Pasarit for a few turns before the BMW driver asserted himself. A few places further back Khun Kittipol was unstoppable as he very quickly deposed Khun Ekprawat, who was suffering a lack of top end power thanks to an ECU problem, and Khun Kantadhee, while at the tail end of the top ten Khun Rudolf Yu was swarming over Khun Vasu.

Khun Jack controlled the pace to keep hold of the lead all the way to the checkered flag, finishing 2.314 seconds ahead of Khun Chayut who was having a terrific weekend, building on his P3 the previous day with the runners’ up spot in this race.

“Race one was tough as it seems like the car can’t handle that much weight, but I finished fourth so I knew that I could take 30 kilos of ballast off so I would have a better chance of gunning for the win on Sunday as I knew it was a reverse grid for the second race,” a satisfied Khun Jack explained afterwards. “I’m mostly thinking about the championship and not trying to be a hero in every race but gather as much points as possible from every round.
 
“Race two was fun and after the Toyota corner, the long lefthander, I decided to dive into first place because I knew I had to get past as fast as possible because I wasn’t sure how quickly the drivers behind me who were in front of me in race one were going to catch me,” he continued. “I got past Khun [Naiyanobh] and after that just did what I love doing.” He certainly did that and three wins and a fourth place from the four races so far gives him a commanding 31-point advantage in the unofficial championship standings. He’s going to be very hard to beat now for the title.

Meanwhile, the runner up driver was just as pleased. “The race was perfect,” said a delighted Khun Chayut afterwards. He admitted that on both days his team had problems to resolve that appeared just minutes before the cars formed up on the grid. “I struggled a little bit before the start as yesterday the radiator broke just before the dummy grid and [we] had about 15 minutes to change it and all the mechanics did a wonderful job to make it to the grid on time and today on the way to the grid we had [a part] come off for some reason and we replace with a new one so it’s 100%. I’m quite happy with the race, it’s fantastic actually.”

Third across the line was arguably the man of the race, Khun Kittipol. He had only arrived in Buriram just hours before the race started due to other commitments (Khun Carlo had driven his vacant car to the podium the day before) and he promptly sliced through the field like a knife through butter to finish a provisional P3. He was later excluded from the results however due to a fire extinguisher infraction, but despite that blow it was a fine performance and Khun Kittipol has now turned more than himself into one of the ‘big’ names in Super 2000. That’s a hard task in the ultra-competitive world of Super 2000 that is built on breeding top drivers; but certainly this is one that’s thriving.

“I started on the last row due to not being here for qualifying and Saturday’s race,” explained Khun Kittipol. “Basically I just drove my nuts off to come up to eighth before the Safety Car period. After the Safety Car, I had a very exciting battle with [Khun Pasarit] and [Khun Kantadhee]. They are top drivers and weren’t going to let me pass easily. Thankfully my car was very strong this last race weekend and once I cleared them I had a clear track right to the finish line. There was no chance of catching up with [Khun Jack] and [Khun Chayut] in front so from twenty third to third was a very pleasing drive.”
 
Once Khun Kittipol had dropped out of the final classification that moved Khun Pasarit up to P3 after another fighting drive. That keeps him in third place in the unofficial championship standings, although he’s virtually out of the picture for the title battle.

“For this race, it was quite challenging and very tough race,” admitted Khun Pasarit who wasn’t quite able to reenact the stunning form he showed during the season opener back in May. “I managed myself to finish the race and try to be back on the podium. We were the fourth to pass the checkered flag, one car was disqualified [so] we finally got third position on podium. Definitely, we have a lot of homework to do. It’s not only about improving the car but also myself [so] hopefully we have a good position for the next race.”
 
Khun Kantadhee provided Team Eakie’s engineers with some satisfaction as he hauled the 86 into a podium position, the first time on the rostrum for the new racecar and that was also his second consecutive points finish. After being well off the pace during the opening event of the year in the raw new racecar, the mechanics have clearly made big strides during the intervening two and a half months and the striking machine is now knocking on the door of the higher podium steps.

According to Team Owner Khun Anothai Eamlumnow the big outstanding development issue remaining is the handling. “The 86 was running good without power steering,” he said. “We’ve got to fix that problem and everything should be on the right track. Our engine is not the most powerful one in the class but our power band never dropped throughout the race.” Certainly if this pretty 86 based package can be further honed then Khun Kantadhee should be able to challenge for wins, this driver, at the very least, is quite a capable winner at this level.

Khun Ekprawat in the improving Civic FB claimed the final step of the podium. His speed wasn’t completely unlocked though as the car suffered technical issues again, but certainly this car/driver package has a lot of potential. “I got engine problems caused from ECU again from the beginning of the race so no chance to fight anyway,” he said afterwards. “But we know what the problem with the ECU is.

“My car wasn’t perfectly tuned but without all those problems it should be much more fun,” Khun Ekprawat added. Once up to speed in the self-developed car clearly he should be pushing hard for the higher podium steps. In the end he finished just a few tenths ahead of his teammate Khun Munkong who was hit by engine problems at the start of the race and they reared again towards the end. Six overall championship points and Class B victory was a decent reward in the end when it could easily have been none. Certainly those hard fought six points were absolutely vital to keep him still hanging onto the tail of Khun Jack in the chase for the overall title.

Seventh to ninth went to Khun Rudolf, Khun Wijak and Khun Artit, who also claimed second, third and fourth places in Class B respectively. Khun Wijak’s teammate Khun Nattachak nabbed the final podium spot in Class B from P11 as the two TBN MK IHere drivers bounced back following overnight repairs to their Civics, the pair firmly putting behind them their torrid race one.

Just a place ahead of Khun Nattachak, in P10, was Khun Vasu who ended the weekend on a high note with victory in Class C to add to the third place he had claimed the day before. After a tough start to the season back in May the return trip to Buriram turned into a very rewarding weekend for the Civic FD driver.

“For my race on Saturday my car had minor electrical problems [and] I could only shift at 6500rpm but I still managed to finish third in class,” Khun Vasu explained afterwards. “In the second race we managed to fix the problem and I’m very happy with the results and it was a thrilling race, the battle between Rudolf and me was very exciting,” he noted. “For the next race I will be improving my dampers and the close ratio gears.” Khun David (P13), Khun Paritat (P13), Khun Issares (P14) and the lapped Khun Phatwit (P15) wrapped up the classified finishers.

Plenty of cars dropped by the wayside during the race including both factory Altis entries, Khun Pure in the #2 suffered an early reoccurrence of the electrical issues that had hit him in the first race while his teammate Khun Chen in the #58 retired after seven laps. Khun Poramin was a non-starter after more driveshaft problems, Khun Jakthong and Khun Naiyanobh and Khun Jakthong clashed on the second lap while Khun Thanavud’s engine gasped enough on the eighth lap. There were two non starters, Khun Narasak’s Civic was incapacitated after the first race while other commitments meant Khun Jetsada, the winner of Class C in the first race, was absent for Sunday’s second race.