The annual Malaysian Speed Festival (MSF) Merdeka Race took place at the Sepang International Circuit last Sunday (1 September), in conjunction with Malaysia’s 67th Independence Day.
This event provided adrenaline junkies with an opportunity to enjoy freedom and unity through speed.
The event featured many exciting races, including the MSF Super Series, also known as the sprint race, which had 30 racers participating. TRP had the opportunity to meet one of the racers, Dinesh Thayalan.
Dinesh Thayalan
Dinesh started racing at the age of 24 and has been racing for 8 years. He is the owner of his current racing team, Sirius & Capital, as well as Just Motorsports, which is a racing arm of Honda Racing for the Asia-Pacific region.
For the MSF race, he drove a Honda Civic CL7R, a factory-made racing car equipped with a K20 Honda racing engine that produces an impressive 300 horsepower. The car cost around half a million to prepare for the race.
Personally, I am a partner at a private equity firm where we buy businesses and turn them around to make a profit, I suppose. But since we have always been into racing, and racing is always a passion, we decided to buy a racing team and include it in our portfolio. Fortunately, it’s a very small part of the portfolio, but it’s there nevertheless. It’s a pleasure to own such a racing team, in my opinion. And I race myself, so there are some synergies as well.
Dinesh Thayalan
Dinesh races not only in the MSF series but also in TCR Asia. According to him, this changes every year based on the racers’ interests.
The Race
When asked how he prepares for a race, he mentioned that he doesn’t have a particular routine and just goes with the flow.
This is surprising, considering that every decision a racer makes on the track is crucial and can determine their position on the podium.
Nonetheless, Dinesh’s talent as a racer was proven when he finished in second place after starting in 6th position after qualifying.
We finished P2 at the end, which is great. We did jump up three places from our initial position, which is great in itself, but there’s still a lot of work to do because we’re still far from P1. P1 finished, if I’m not mistaken, a good 20 seconds ahead of us at the end of the race, so that’s 20 seconds we need to find from our car, our driving, or anything else.
Dinesh Thayalan
The race was intense from the beginning, with each racer pushing their cars to the limits on the challenging Sepang track.
The race is also noted for being both physically and mentally demanding, with each racer enduring around 3g of gravitational force while racing.
Sharing his experience, Dinesh mentioned that racers face many challenges, starting with the temperature inside the car, which increases as the race progresses.
Expenditures in Racing
“For local races alone, we spend a good million a year to race,” Dinesh said.
He added that running a Honda for these races is manageable for now. However, competing at international levels would cost 10 to 15 times more.
Perhaps in 10 years, when the business is bigger and we have that kind of money to burn — 15 million to 16 million ringgit a year — then maybe we can think about it.
Dinesh Thayalan
For aspiring racers, his advice is simple: just do it.
The only way to find out if you’re good or not is to do it, and there are two ways this goes, right? It either goes well, or it goes to shit. If it goes well, then we know we have another golden talent in Malaysia
Dinesh Thayalan
