Alex Hagberg drives XRAY to victory at the Asian ORCA Cup Series

 

The final race of the Asian ORCA Cup series was held in the small village of Kota Raja, just outside Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. The race saw some 100 entries split on two classes: 13.5T turbo timing and 17.5T blinky classes. As stock classes are very popular in Asia, there is normally no Modified racing class. The Kota Raja track is a partly government financed track with a pretty big and technical layout. Traction was fairly low, as the asphalt surface was quite rough. The track was not sprayed, so traction was gradually increasing as the race progressed. Drivers from all over Asia attended the race including Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore.
 

 

In the 13.5T class it was Alex Hagberg who was considered as the pre-event favorite. The best Malaysian drivers, Azri Amri, and Jacky Siow were also both very fast on this track with their extensive track knowledge and stock class expertise. Alex arrived at the track on Wednesday before the race, together with an other XRAY driver from Thailand, Mr. Natee. They both started to practice to get used to the track layout. As traction was very low, also in combination with the hard Ride R36 controlled tire, car set-up was very difficult. The difference between new and old tires was also very big, as always on asphalt. As the race only allowed for 3 sets to be used, one had to be strategic enough to know when to use a new set.
 


In qualifying Hagberg had a good series of run to take the win in all 5 qualifiers. In a few of those rounds he was challenged closely by XRAY driver Jacky Siow who showed a great pace, with his almost box stock set-up T4 car. Azri Amri was in 3rd, also on pace but with making a few errors. The best 3 rounds out of 5 were going to decide the final starting positions. They were lucky with good weather as it only rained a little on Saturday morning, which eventually dried quite quickly.
 
The finals were run in blazing hot conditions with track temperatures ranging over 50 degrees C. As Alex still had two sets of tires left after qualifying, he knew that he had a good chance to make the best use of his TQ starting position. Hagberg would win the first two finals quite easy without any challenges and was crowned the ORCA Cup Final champion. 2nd place was won by Jacky Siow, and in 3rd we saw a surprise move by Wong Kok Wai who won A3 in order to take 3rd. Azri Amri suffered from two DNF's and was not able to finish on the podium.

In the end it was a very successful event with great atmosphere and good racing in all finals.  

 

 

 

Alex Hagberg says, "Once again I could enjoy the very friendly Asian racers greeting me. XRAY is a strong brand in Malaysia. I would like to give my special thanks to Mr. Suah from RC Planet, the Malaysian XRAY distributor, as well as Frankie and Michael from ORCA, whom all did a great job with organizing the race and my stay over there."

 

 

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