King of Clubs Take two! What happened in the second year of the competition?

In the month of October 2014, CAR Malaysia held our first ever King of Clubs competition. Back then it was only open to car clubs of European make and everybody had fun producing some very surprising results. Just as the event had ended, our minds had been churning ever since to create a King of Clubs in its second year running and we’re going to open it up to Asian car clubs as well.

So we started planning and plotting to bring on the car clubs for King of Clubs 2015. Last year’s car clubs that supported us were the first to receive invitations while we started working on the Asian car clubs. Come D-Day, we have eight European car clubs including Pacific club representative Ford and six Asian car clubs.

On Saturday, the usual morning havoc took place with the Asian car clubs arriving to take their places in the hotel. We have Nissan Almera Club Malaysia, Toyota MR2/ MRS club, Antera Club, VERV Club, Mazda MX-5 Club and Subie Fusion Club in attendance. While on Sunday, we had Ford, Malat Bimmer, E30 Club Malaysia, Lotus Owners Club Malaysia, Volvo Enthusiast Club Malaysia, Mini Owner’s Club Malaysia, Club Audi Malaysia and Peugeot Club Malaysia running the show.

Saturday had been covered in haze, but the teams had soldiered on and braved the haze to take on the individual challenges. There were six challenges on Saturday; Gymkhana, Precision Driving, RC Challenge, Simulator Challenge, Pitstop Challenge and Treasure Hunt.

It was MX-5 that brought the most live-wires on Saturday, bringing along shouts of cheers wherever the team went. Antera and VERV club had the loudest cars at the Gymkhana challenge and all had a good time finding out what the Precision Driving challenge had to offer.

On Sunday, we couldn’t decide which team had the biggest support group! Mini, Peugeot and both BMW clubs, Malat Bimmer and E30 Club Malaysia had equally large groups of cheerleaders while Volvo had brought along their families armed with tables and chairs for a picnic over at the KOC parking area, they took our advice about turning it into a family weekend literally we see.

Anticipation was high for the teams on our improved challenges, but on Sunday, we only ran five challenges; Gymkhana, Precision Driving, Simulators, RC race and Pitstop challenge. As usual, the Gymkhana Challenge was the highlight of the day for the European teams while the new and improved RC Challenge had completely replaced the disappointment for the lack of a Go-kart challenge.

Congratulations to the teams who won the individual challenges. On Saturday, Toyota MR2/MRS had taken home the medal for best results in the RC challenge along with the best times in Gymkhana. Antera on the other hand took home the medals for Precision Driving and the Simulator challenge. The public has also voted Antera’s show car as the most attractive in KOC making it a hat-trick of wins for the club!

At the end of Saturday it was MR2/ MRS club who took home the coveted King of Clubs Asian Edition trophy.

On Sunday, the Mini team swept up the medals for the RC Challenge and the Pitstop Challenge while Ford equalled the tally by taking home best times for Gymkhana challenge and most points collected in Precision Driving. Malat Bimmer conquered virtual reality with the fastest times so they took away the medal for the Simulator challenge. The best show car had gone to E30 Club Malaysia with their convertible Beemer.

The new comers of King of Clubs European edition had stolen the show this year with Ford emerging as the King. Looks like the team had not crack under pressure even though they had paired up with last year’s champions!

Congratulations to all the winners and we hope to see you all again next year! Special thanks to our sponsors Petronas, MyMotors, Kurnia and Falken Malaysia for providing the props for our challenges. Let the planning for King of Clubs 2016 begin!

Jerrica Leong