I was saddened when I could not join GRA Round 1 as my car was up for sale. All this changed when one day, Mr. Grass called me on my mobile and said “Do you want to be the head timekeeper for the day?” My face brightened up and eagerly I said “Yes.”

            The hard task that Mr. Grass gave me to do was to get the best two or best three time of any number of timed runs for the day. I had Ms. Suzie send me a copy of the last year’s data to help me do the formulations. After a while, I manage to finish the formulation and after some testing, found to be consistent.

            Day before the race day, I prayed hard that there will be no mistakes for the timekeeping exercise. I wished I prayed harder, for you will know in the end how Gremlins can spoil a perfect day.

            Morning of race day, I arrived with my dear, Evilaine on time at 7am. We took a short stop at McD to buy some breakfast. Arriving on the scene, we were greeted by marshals who, look at the white Proton Iswara I was driving and asked with a raised eyebrow, “Are you a competitor?” My dear immediately said “No, he’s an official.” Candidly, he let me into the pit area.

            We were later briefed by Mr. Peter Hansen from Motorsports Association Malaysia (MAM) on the need to register as an official for many purposes, the most important being insured in the race track. He was a cheerful guy with many smiles while we ask many inane questions. We all signed the lovely form that will make us feel at ease for the rest of the day.

            Mr. Grass later came to the timekeeping tent and assigned 4 timekeepers at my disposal. He also briefed us on how the time system works and how to work the switches. This is when one will really appreciate how much work a timekeeper must do to even launch a single car. A simple throwing of 4 switches but one can mess it up if he is not concentrating.

            We prepared our procedures as we go into practice runs for the Grass Class. Vroom vroom is all we hear in the tent as Vtecs, Turbos and some loud exhaust, tellytumby’s car being one of the loudest exhaust pipe for the smaller cars. Not much mistakes was made there as we were all fresh and eager to go.

            Our jobs consist of 3 timekeepers with little cute stop watches. They will launch the cars and watch them all the way from start to finish. After the time is taken, he will go over to my assistant and myself to give the car number and time. My assistant, Mr. Choo will record the time manually while I will record the time electronically and checking the manual time as we go.

            From time to time, Mr. Grass will come over and ask “Results ready?” I will answer with either “Printing” or “Pick it up from the printer.’ Except for once, when our printer ink ran out, Mr. Peterink, true to his name like Peter Pan saving Wendy, comes to our rescue with his bottle of ink!

There were few hiccups during the race, one being the many re-runs due to jumpstarters. Many competitors were seen letting go the clutch even before the timekeepers little hands can push the green switch. Marshals were doing a good job stopping the cars before anything happens and reporting in all penalties with effectiveness.

However, all this were marred at the end of the day when the results were finally out for the pro grass class. The overall results for a single competitor was wrong as the formulation did not take into account one of his time due to a gremlin eating a few words  in an overly complex formula. I really wish to apologize to the organizers for that mistake and hope that it will not happen again. Also, a new and better timesheet is in the process.

All in all, it was a fun day at the GRA, where many people doing realize that it’s a lot of work in the event. For only Mr. Grass and Ms. Suzie to organize such a big event is almost a miracle and the delay for round 1 was worth it. We did get our nice race and we all had a good time. It was my first experience as a race official and I will cherish it till the end of time.