We’re just the length of the weekend away from the 9th Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival getting underway and one of the most striking aspects with the fans next week is going to be a fight back by Japanese brands on grids that are rapidly becoming dominated by European racecars.

Two Japanese cars to look out for in action on the streets will be the visually muscular and aggressive NSports-developed Nissan GTR, dubbed ‘Godzilla’, which is finally retuning to the fray in anger after a full year on the sidelines, and the ‘pink’ Mazda RX-7 GT-S from Rotary Revolution, a car that is equally as striking and which should now up to full speed and ready to do battle on the streets of Bangsaen after enjoying a quiet but promising debut at the last round.

It’s not just going to be about Japanese machines though as the numerically dominant Porsche ranks will swell further thanks to stalwart Super Car team A Motorsport, which will have two of the German racecars running in its colours for the first time. The arrival of a latest-generation 991 GT3 Cup, fresh from active duty in this year’s Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, has thus freed up the team’s 997 GT3 Cup, which will be taken over by Khun Pinet Piyaoui who will use the car to mark his return to Super Car Class 2-GTM where he’s enjoyed plenty of past success.

Bangsaen is a lot more than just a headline motor racing event, it’s a glorious festival of competitive spirit in a highly challenging environment and now it’s also become much more than just a challenge exclusively reserved for ICE-powered four wheeled vehicles. That’s because the Bangsaen Criterium cycle race, after a hugely successful debut last year, is back on the programme. And the second edition is going to be bigger and better, as it will feature more top teams and riders, and thus be even more competitive.

Godzilla strides back to the action

After several years running highly tuned Mitsubishi Evos the NSports-Yokohama team rocked up at the start of 2014 season with a pair of dramatic Nissan GTR R35s ready to race in Super Car Class 2-GTM. For the season opener in Sepang last year they got off to a flying start as returning Thai star driver Khun Traitanit Chimtawan planted his GTR on the podium in a superb P3.

The full year was a bit up and down though. The car was blisteringly powerful and impressively quick, clearly it has huge potential to unlock, it’s certainly striking to look at, pumped up, muscular and oozing aggression; it immediately was dubbed ‘Godzilla’ by the media and that’s all helped make it a huge hit with the fans.

It’s also a highly ambitious project, two of the GTRs were built into racecars by the Bangkok-based team from standard road cars bought out of the showroom and they then had to then go onto the racetrack and mix it up with turnkey racers from Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini. And the driver, Khun Traitanit, he’s a street fighter, a battler, a hustler, he isn’t intimidated on track and knows how to get the job done – that makes him perfect to tame the Godzilla.

There are however plenty of negatives and hurdles to overcome, it’s a former road car planting it’s turbocharged power down onto the racetrack via many components that are still production standard, scratch beneath the skin and you will find many homologated parts, but most of all it’s a big and heavy car. The ‘R35 generation’ GTR is a strikingly impressive machine when you break out its specifications and its technology, but few teams have dared to try to turn it into a racetrack winner, it’s simply beyond the skills of most tuners worldwide to turn all that potential into a solid P1.

None of that though has stopped Team Owner Khun Thongchai Kittisiriprasert. He’s ambitious for sure, but more than that he wants to develop his own racecars, to craft winners through the skills available in his team. Winning with a racecar he’s developed himself brings more satisfaction and also proves the highest levels of engineering ability that his company aims for.

All the way through last year the GTRs evolved, everything that could be removed was removed, the engineers continually chipping away at the GTR’s weight while the cooling systems evolved to compensate for the production transmission – but it wasn’t enough and a really radical rethink was called for.

After flirting with the idea for a while, the team decided that the four-wheel-drive system would be removed, which at a stroke would save a couple of hundred kilos, but it would also remove one of the car’s plus points. The transmission had to go though and the cars disappeared from the racetrack. “The regulations allow around 14,000 [kg] and our car runs at 1,700 [kg] so it’s a waste of time to run for the full year this year,” says Khun Thongchai.

As Nissan’s GTR isn’t available in two-wheel-drive format the drivetrain would have to be custom developed to sit between the rear wheels and decision that saw the brutal beasts sitting on the sidelines for the whole season.

The perfect solution was to kick off an ambitious project to develop a rear-mounted gearbox, which would be a world first for the GTR. “We had a problem with the transmission all year [in 2014] and so we ordered a new transmission off Hollinger,” explains Khun Thongchai. “But the problem was that Hollinger were making a big project with the [Lamborghini] Huracán so they cannot make our project.”

That was a major setback. Bangsaen though is the one event on the annual Thai motorsport calendar that just cannot be missed and for Khun Thongchai not being represented on the grid for the iconic street race was simply unthinkable, so the team had to come to a compromise.

“To get the car racing this year we just bought a normal transmission from Hollinger that sits in the middle of the car,” Khun Thongchai says. “But normally we want it in the back so this one we get just so we can run the car this year, so the project has changed from the rear gearbox to come back to the center box and I made that decision only three months ago as they told us the project had to be stopped to work on the [Lamborghini Huracán] GT3.”

The repositioning of the gearbox to the middle of the car allows a lot of standardisation to be retained although there will need to be a focus on balancing the weight, but the clear reductions made thanks to the switch to rear wheel drive plus other savings that have been extracted from the car means it should be able to reach the mandatory series weight limits. The new transmission should also eliminate the cooling issues the team suffered and that will allow the car to be fitted with a standard engine and turbo which should improve reliability but still allow sufficient power to be competitive in Class 2-GTM.

This week the car is taking final shape in the team’s workshops, the main task remaining being the electronics. “We’re waiting for the software so we can run this car with Traction Control as without it it’s going to be spinning a lot,” says Khun Thongchai. “So were waiting for the wiring and then setting it.”

After a year away there’s a lot of anticipation surrounding the return of the GTR, quick and with plenty of potential, the severe weight loss certainly should solve most of the fundamental problems. But there have been sweeping changes made and there isn’t much time to get back into the groove, so it’s very hard to say where the GTR is going to appear on the timesheets. And a year is a very longtime now in Super Car Class 2-GTM, the competitive bar has shot up much further since the GTR last graced the racetrack.

Khun Thongchai certainly isn’t talking up his hopes for the car’s comeback race. “I don’t know,” he says in response to that question. “I just want to finish the three races and I also hope we can get into the podium, that’s our extra hope, to be on the podium.” Certainly there will be a lot of fans in the grandstands and glued to the TVs at home all hoping exactly the same thing.

And while it’s just one GTR on the entry list for Bangsaen, that’s for now. However if the ‘GTR Mk2’ project works out, expect the team to start converting a second example.

Step up in ambition

A Motorsport owner Khun Aekarat Discharoen will be swapping into a newly acquired Porsche 991 GT3 Cup for next week’s 9th Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival and that’s freed up his usual 997 GT3 Cup which in fact won’t be spending any time on the sidelines as it will be taken over by the team’s other regular driver, Khun Pinet Piyaoui.

This will also be the first time Khun Pinet has raced a non-Japanese machine in Super Car. He originally started out with a Toyota Supra, swapped that for a Subaru Impreza and this year made his comeback with a later model Impreza, this time in Super Car Class 3-GTC. That last Impreza, which was brought back into service after spending a few years in retirement, it didn’t live up to the expectations and the forthcoming availability of Khun Aekarat’s 997 saw the dots very quickly join up.

“After being disappointed with the Subaru, I wanted to try something new and a challenge,” says Khun Pinet. “I didn’t hesitate as soon as [TSS Vice President] Khun Preeda [Tantemsapya] informed me that I was qualified to enter GT Asia in Buriram.”

The Porsche though is a pukka factory built racecar, it’s an entirely different machine to the clutch of sporty Japanese road cars converted locally for racing use that Khun Pinet has piloted so far – there’s going to be a steep learning curve, but teaming up with Khun Aekarat for the GT Asia Series round at Buriram last month has given Khun Pinet valuable track time in a full racing scenario. “I found that I had to start from zero when learning this new car,” he explains. “I started to understand why they call it a ‘GT’ car since it’s very powerful and I need time to understand its behaviour.

“I finished fourth in the Saturday race [in GT Asia Series] with a consistent lap time of 1.41 except for a mistake at last corner before checkered flag that made me lose my third position,” Khun Pinet adds. “I’m happy to gain experience from this race.”

Driving the Porsche around Bangsaen next week will be an immediate continuation of that steep learning curve, from the wide open high speed swoops and ultra smooth tarmac of Buriram and to the tight, narrow, twisty and bumpy confines of the street circuit. Continuing the ‘learning curve’ is the plan too. “At Bangsaen I want to understand more from this car so that I would be more ready for next year’s races,” Khun Pinet adds.

Rise of Pink Sakura
 
Over the almost three year long lifespan of TSS the Thai motorsport landscape has changed beyond recognition as professional standards across every area have climbed sky-high over such a short period of time. It’s left the sport in a rapid state of flux. While this has been an unquestioned win-win for every aspect of our motorsport there have been some fundamental changes in the landscape as a result of those dizzying changes.

One big change has been very visual, the fading out of the long and rich tradition of top level Thai racecar constructing as local craftsmen have been unable to match the sophistication and scale of the turn-key racecars flooding in from Europe from prestige brands such as Ferrari, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini.
 
The era of local ‘Super Car’ production has been reduced to the factory-run Toyotas and the Nissan GT-R R35s (see other story) in the top classes. However in the new Class 3-GTC there is still room to prosper and it’s been the aim of TSS to provide a platform where locally developed cars can thrive.

One company, Rotary Revolution, owned by Khun Titapon Phaojinda, and already regarded as Thailand’s foremost expert on tuning ‘rotary’ powered road and race cars, has this year launched a highly ambitious project to build a series of purpose-built new racecars based on Mazda’s iconic RX-7.
 
Rotary Revolution has a long and successful history in both the rotary tuning world and top level Thai motorsport having been the first concern to tune ‘rotary’ cars in Thailand while it’s raced in Super Car for more than half a decade with very good results. Khun Pete Thongchua’s Mazdas in their signature bright colours have become a permanent fixture on the landscape.

The company in fact first went racing to prove the reliability of the ‘rotary’ PU in the extreme conditions associated with competing on the racetrack and in particular the intense pressures that come with an entry in Thailand’s premier racing series, Super Car. Driven by a passion to demonstrate the racing capability of rotary PUs and silence doubters they went straight to Thailand’s top category.

“We wanted to prove that rotary is reliable for everyone to use and to tune up,” explains Khun Titapon. “So we went racing to show that rotary is fast and reliable and I think we have proved that with no engine failures in more than five years of being in Super Car.”

That was the first step. Developing Khun Pete’s new RX-8 further through it second year on track has brought improved success and the actor-driver will go into the season closer next week in Bangsaen with four straight podiums visits to his name (two runners up spots as well as a third- and a fourth-place).
 
The reputation for reliability on the racetrack that Rotary Revolution has built up fired the new phase. Driven by a loyal and enthusiastic customer base that wanted Thai built racecars capable of returning Japanese ‘culture’ to the racing frontline, a new racecar development programme was born.

Khun Titapon’s customers wanted racecars – and soon he had a queue forming. It was time to get serious. “Several of our customers really wanted a car to go racing with that would be cost effective and we have learnt a lot building the RX-7 and RX-8 so we have a highly experienced fabricator to complete the chassis and then we have everything to build up the cars in our workshops,” he says.
 
“We have orders for six full race spec cars which we have started to build and we are also building a lower cost ‘half’ spec car,” he continues. “The pink RX-7 is the first we have made and this is our development car to perfect the process.” The new programme perfectly fits with the TSS’s ambitions for Class 3-GTC.

So meet the striking RX-7 GT-S (‘S’ stands for ‘Step’), an emotive racecar that excludes aggression with beauty from every inch of its muscular yet lithe frame, but which importantly still retains the DNA of the iconic original.

Drawing on the aerodynamic tradition of Japan’s ‘Super GT’ machines the GT-S’s potency is plain to see in its dynamic stance and bulging surface features, its bodywork being a mix of lightweight fiberglass and carbon fibre panels. The aero package is one of the car’s most striking features and it closely follows the team’s tradition of developing racecars that are inspired by the traditional aerodynamics of the top level Japanese sportscars.

Clearly the ‘GT-S’ pays homage to the iconic RX-7 lineage, but equally clearly this is a car that has its own style. The multi-curvatures of the engine cover have been enhanced, as has the sweep of the A-pillars below the glasshouse. Form follows function, unquestionably in this racecar, but beauty closely follows that form and function. There are new LED lights at the rear, a custom diffuser and a big racing rear wing sourced from Japan.

The RX-7 GT-S programme has been developed as a racecar without compromise but strictly within what is permitted by the rules. “We have to work with the TSS regulations so the RX-7 can race in Super Car,” says Khun Titapon. “But that has allowed us to make many changes especially with the front and rear chassis and we have also upgraded the suspension.”

A reduced ride height, which gives the car a lower center of gravity, comes thanks to a suspension system that has been redesigned and an increase in wheelbase as well as better chassis stiffness due to the rollcage and spot welding. Other racing features include the front crossbar being bolted in place to allow quick access while the subframe and PU mounting points are retained to fit the TSS regulations.
 
Safety rules call for the addition of a new fireproof bulkhead between the cockpit and the fuel cell while the exhaust is now a side exit format and also encased. Inside the cockpit there is a racing pedal box, new dashboard and further safety features. Under the bonnet the rotary engine, which the company builds in-house, is broadly similar but with higher rated seals to allow for improved performance.

The car has certainly been an instant hit with the fans and although it only first appeared on a racetrack in the summer it’s already graced the covers of leading Thai tuning and motorsport magazines. It stands out not least due to its curves but it’s bold colour scheme, which has quickly earned it the nickname ‘Pink Sakura’. That’s appropriate as Japanese racing heritage is very clear central to this project.

The RX-7 debuted in Super Car Class 3-GTC during the last round at Bira Circuit with Khun Narin Yensuk at the wheel, the Chiang Mai driver ditching the white #13 Nissan Skyline R32 he normally pilots to step into the Mazda. Khun Narin was however still recovering from having broken his arm and although he was signed off as medically fit to race he was still not up to full strength so it was in reality a ‘soft’ race debut for both car and driver.

However there were promising signs. Now comes the RX-7’s second appearance in TSS and it simply doesn’t get anymore challenging than Bangsaen. Team and driver are going to have plenty of work to do but one thing they can be very certain of, there will be a lot of attention in the grandstands focused on the bright pink car and plenty of admiring glances cast in its direction when it’s resting in the paddock garage on Beach Road. Just like the GTR in fact. And in fact this is just the start, next year expect to see more of RX-7 GT-S machines racing in TSS.
 
Bangsaen Criterium grows in prestige for second edition
 
Last year Racing Spirit introduced a cycle race into the hectic Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival programme, slotting it in very early on the Sunday morning. It really proved to be an instant hit with an oversubscribed entry list of professional and amateur riders who all strived to achieve victory on two wheels over the demands of the famous 3.7-km street course which so far had only ever reverberated to the sound of internal combustion engines.

At the very early time of 0700 a pack of 120 hundred riders (30 teams of 4 riders) took to the course and as the sun steadily rose over the Gulf of Thailand the only sound to disturb the early morning seagulls was the almost continuous swish of racing bicycle tyres. Singha Infinite team emerged as the winners of last year’s inaugural Bangsaen Criterium; the team comprising of three Thai riders, Khun Yutthana Mano, Khun Patiyarn, Khun Garnpolchue and Khun Puntawit Dibdeja and Russia’s Khun Konstantin Fast. The race’s runner up spot was grabbed by Suanthon Gold City while third place went to Rayong Road Bike and Flying Sharks.
 
The ‘Criterium’ was all part of the organisers’ ongoing philosophy of keeping up with emerging trends and turning the Speed Festival into a major sporting event with ever wider growing appeal.

That highly successful inaugural event has seen the Bangsaen Criterium immediately taking up a position on the annual Thai cycle racing calendar and there has been huge interest in the build up to this year’s Speed Festival and the second running of the cycle race.

This year the second edition of the Bangsaen Criterium will again take place at 0700 on Sunday morning (29 Nov) and will feature an even bigger field spread across three categories, ‘Gold Riders’ (professionals), ‘Silver Riders’ (semi-professionals) and ‘Lady Riders’ (all levels), each competing for the highly prestigious Bangsaen Criterium Trophy. Last year’s race winning team, Singha Infinite, will be back to defend their honours while there will be an influx of new names with many very familiar riders from the cycle racing world coming to test themselves against the street circuit.

Slotting the 2nd Bangsaen Criterium 2015 into the Speed Festival programme means that the race will take place under the guidance of our highly trained rescue crews and that means absolute safety will be the key priority for the cyclists and well as there being FIA level medical facilities and medical staff to support the race.

Last year a smattering of fans rose very early to catch the action, which was non-stop all the way to the finish, and so expect more to watch the race unfold this year. The Bangsaen Criterium will also join our comprehensive streaming package and will be shown live on our website.