All Novice class entrants of the PETRONAS Sprinta AAM Malaysian Cub Prix Championship, including that of Team PSR’s Suhadi Ali Rahmat and Mohd Syahnas Shahidan had a day to forget today when heavy downpour in Kuantan disrupted the ongoing Novice Class Finals. And since the race was barely into its regulatory 65% mark, the round was written off and deemed as a non-championship cumulative round.

The final decision was quite unfortunate for Team PETRONAS Sprinta Racing since their rider, second overall Mohd Syahnas Shahidan will only have one more round in Penang to catch table leader Noor Azizi Aziz, who currently leads with a 7-point gap. The resolution also denied the strong qualifying performances shown by both of its riders in today’s qualifying session.

In the earlier heats session, both Suhadi and Syahnas kicked off Team PSR’s Kuantan campaign to a flying start when they took the chequered flag with such commanding dominance. Suhadi clocked a best lap of 1min 06.656s leaving the second place finisher a distant 19 seconds behind. Syahnas also emulated his teammate’s performance by taking the top spot with 21.3 seconds to spare and clocked a best of 1min 07.428s.

Although the day started with sunny and hot conditions, it did not remain that way for long. By 3pm, tiny specks of rain were spotted and by 4pm, slight drizzle turned into a complete downpour with strong winds and rolling thunder threatening to disrupt the ongoing proceedings. With a wet race in the cards, the riders changed their visors and went out anyway braving the worse of conditions. Nonetheless, sweet memories of their superb 1-2 finish in the wet opening round of Seremban 2 reassured the riders.

As they lined up for a soggy Novice Finals after a long delay, as expected, it was Team PSR riders who first banked into the opening u-turn corner. The next two laps saw the duo strengthening their positions and at the same time, trying to increase their gap over the other racers. Just as they were about to start the fourth lap, the marshall started to wave the red flag and the race called off.

Syahnas recall, “The track was really slippery but at the same time, we really needed this win. So, I just pushed my machine not thinking what might happen if we had made even the slightest of error. But then, the rain destroyed everything. What to do...”

Meanwhile, in the Expert category, Suhadi managed to finish the punishing 12-lap race in a commendable 7th position. Starting from the 12th grid position courtesy of his 6th place finish in the earlier heats session, Suhadi were seen challenging many renowned racers to land himself in the top 8 much to the delight of the crowd. Despite a close high-side drama in lap 5, Suhadi managed to hang on and finish the race in 7th position.

He recalled, “That was one close call, and it could have easily been the worse. Luckily I held on the handlebar and did not let go. The bike then straightened itself and I could proceed from then on.” Teammate Syahnas however, were not able to continue the fight in expert finals when his machine seized in the opening lap of the 10-lap qualifying session.

Team Manager Saiful Amri Abdullah said, “It is sad that we cannot fulfill our mission here in Kuantan. Our next mission now is to ensure a full assault in Penang. We are still in the chase for Novice title and we will definitely try our best to achieve the target that we have set earlier in the season.”

The final round of the PETRONAS AAM Malaysian Cub Prix Championship will be held at Batu Kawan, Penang this October 19, 2003.

The following are the unchanged Novice class standings: