Take a very good look at the 'super'-cars below. Now, consider this : in the just concluded 2004 Merdeka Millenium Endurance (12 hours) race held at the Sepang International Circuit, the unheralded Honda Civic '2.0 i-VTEC' either out-lasted, out-raced or plain out-ran all of them and more. Yes, all, including that Lamborghini Murcielago. If last year's Honda Malaysia DC5 Integra Type-R acheived a magnificent result by winning its class and finishing 3rd overall for the race in their first outing, this year the Honda Civic topped even that and actually won the race outright !

For this year, I was very lucky to attend the race as the guest of Honda Malaysia Racing Team (HMRT). Having the presence of mind to wear a Honda T-shirt and the fact that my face is now familiar to most Honda Malaysia staff, I was fortunate to have total freedom to wander around the Honda Malaysia pit (taking care not to get into anyone's way of course). So this year's MME is yet another new experience for me as I was watching and following the whole race from the Honda Malaysia pits.

While last year's MME podium acheivement and Class A win was a great victory, impact-wise it was totally ineffective. After a solitary showcase in a motorshow later in the year (the 2003 KLIMS), the DC5 Integras were packed up and then shipped back to Japan and nothing more was heard of them ever since. Honda of couse still refuses to sell real DC5 Type-Rs outside of Japan so being winner of MME Class A did nothing for Honda Malaysia. For us enthusiasts, the fact that the winning car is a DC5 Integra Type-R only adds to the irony because although almost everyone loves the car, what's the use if we can't buy it even if we have the money ?

Things are a lot different this year. While at this same time last year there wasn't any 'sporty' Honda to speak of in the local line-up, this year we have both a VTEC Jazz & City as well as the K20 Civic. In addition, the new Accords are very quick vehicles as well. The sportiest and about the fastest car in the local Malaysia line-up is of course the K20A powered Civic 2.0 i-VTEC. Yet this car is probably the most under-rated. Strangely it did not receive very good press and I think my review here on TOVA is probably the only one which outrightly sings praises of the car.

The HMRT MME Race Civic was first revealed to the press during Honda Malaysia's JGTC promotion event way back in June. Built using original Honda Civic 2.0 i-VTEC road-cars from their factory in Melaka, HMRT entered two units for the MME and one of them was put on dispay at the event. At that time, the car was only a 'mock-up', re-painted in white (the original cars from the Pegoh plant were in Nighthawk Black) and an 'estimated' colour-scheme. The proper race-car was launched to the press on August 12th at the Sepang International Circuit. This time the (same) car was near complete, with a proper interior and a proper engine. The exterior was all white and without any race colours or sponsors stickers. The final version of the (same) car was only unveiled on August 24th, at Honda Malaysia's 'MME Party' held to announce their formal drivers line-up. Now the cars were finally decked out in full racing colours complete with full sponsorship stickers.


HMRT's Civic 2.0 i-VTEC underwent a gradual transformation from a done-up road-car to championship winning race car

From the beginning, Honda Malaysia planned the effort to be a mix of 'imported' (professional) and 'local' participation. The 2.0 i-VTEC road-cars from Melaka were stripped and then builtt locally by mechanics from the plant itself. Consultations were received from team Kunimitsu Racing from Japan and important components were built by the legendary M-TEC (i.e. Mugen) Co. of Japan. The pit-crews and in fact most of the racing team were specially selected from within Honda Malaysia. As for the drivers, japanese professional racers Hiroki Katoh and Hidetoshi Mitsusada from team Kunimitsu were led by legendary japanese racer Takahashi Kunimitsu. They were then complemented by three of the top local racers; Eddie Liew, Tommy Lee and Farriz Fauzy. The local drivers were selected via a series of time and observation trials at the SIC.

MME sporting regulations puts a limit of 77 cars for the race and by the time of the August 24th 'MME Party', this 'quota' has already been met and entry to the race had been closed. So the line-up of cars competing in the MME itself was already finalized. The HMRT Civics would be competing in 'Class A' which is more or less 'production cars' and 'super-cars' and the competition was indeed formidable. Regulars G1 Symphony is there as usual with 3 Porsche 911 GT3s, with their car no 19 competing in Class A. Lotus put in another strong effort this year, fielding a Lotus Exige S2 with one of their drivers being Singaporean Denis Lian who used to be one of the top drivers in Formula Asia. NAM Racing Team fielded the newest Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 8 MR driven by amongst others, the reigning World Rally Champion (production cars category) Malaysian Karamjit Singh. Other tough competitors included a Lotus Elise 190, many more Mitsubishi EVOs (various generations from 3 right up to 7), a current generation Subaru Imprezza WRX STi, and two DC5 Integra Type-Rs. I'll have to admit that even I was so overwhelmed that I actually asked Honda Malaysia in despair how they hope to compete against such competition in Class A.

'Class A' is actually not the top category for the MME as there is also a higher 'Class O' or 'Open Class' which more or less allows any sort of racing cars to compete. It is this class that such fearsome cars like the Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT of regulars Amprex Motorsports competes under, featuring the famous pair of Genji Hashimoto and Charles Kwan, two of the top racers in Asia. The other 2 Porsche 911 GT3s from team G1 Symphony competed in this category along with two Radical SR3 open-seaters of last year's MME, Lotus 340R, another Mitsubishi with EVO power, and finally a TVR Chimera, all legendary names in racing. How on earth is a 'performance with luxury' 4door sedan going to fight against these ?

Added to this is the fact that HMRT is only formed this year and many of the team members are only competing competitively for their first time. Honda Malaysia is certainly very concious of this and during the 'MME Party', their CEO Seiji Kuraishi-san, and Mr Zainuddin Taib, the HMRT manager told me many times that they are competing for the spirit of competition and that 'please you should not expect any miracles from us this year'. Kuraishi-san was in fact pre-empting to me that they knew there were a lot of people laughing at them for daring to field a Civic against such crazy competition and that he personally was really hoping for both cars to finish the race and hopefully in front of the lower class cars (i.e. Class B and Class C which features 1.8l and 1.6l Protons, Civics and Corollas). 'Finishing in the middle of Class A would already be a huge achievement' so I was told by one of his marketing guys.

But when I interviewed Eddie Liew, one of their star local drivers, I was told a different story. Eddie was a picture of confidence and he told me flatly that endurance racing is not about raw speed but rather about strategy. 'I am confident that we can beat many of our competitors with our strategy' he told me, specially citing the Civic's very good fuel economy. In addition, one of my club members, Shedden was racing for a team in Class C, driving an EK4 Civic. When he saw the HMRT Civics earlier during pre-race practise sessions at the Sepang Circuit, he was already extremely impressed and he was signing praises for the cars and the drivers and telling me confidently that he expects them to do well.

On race day, I arrived just in time for the starting grid 'presentation', i.e. where people with pit-passes are allowed onto the track to check out and take photos of the race cars parked on their respective starting grid positions. And as if to prove Eddie and Shedden right, both HMRT Civics qualified almost at the top of their class, P7 and P8 in row-4, behind 5 'Class O' cars and the Class A Porsche 911 GT3 of G1 Symphony. Things were already looking up and my usual confidence in Honda's ability started to come back.

Click on the photo to download a video of the super-fast final pitstop of the race for HMRT's no 27 Civic.

From the moment the race started, things really started looking up for Honda Malaysia's Civics. Within 2 hours, both cars had already made it right to the front of the pack, racing in P2 and P3 and only behind the mighty Lamborghini Murcielago. The Lambo was of course blindingly fast, lapping the whole field easily. But as Eddie Liew taught me, endurance racing is not about raw speed alone. It's about the car as a whole; how easy it is to drive, how smooth and consistent the car is, and yes, how good the fuel economy is. One of the Civic's major advantage is the MME sporting rule that mandates a driver change after every 75 minutes. From what I understand, the HMRT Civics were pitting mostly according to this 75 minutes interval ruling but many of its competitors had to pit ealier simply because they were running out of fuel ! For e.g. for their respective first pit-stops, both HMRT Civics pitted several laps later than the no 19 Porsche 911 GT3 which eventually took 2nd in the race. And the HMRT stops were much faster too. MME pit-stop rules forbit any work on the cars during refueling (in the interest of safety) and refuelling itself became the longest task in almost all of the car's pit-stops. Honda Malaysia invested in a special refuelling system for their MME Civic, the same type of system used in JGTC cars (the system was submitted to the FIA and the MME organisers for approval before usage). As a result, through a combination of superior fuel economy and the refuelling system, HMRT's pit-stops were blindingly fast. In one pit-stop that I timed crudely using a stop-watch, re-fuelling time took less than 18 seconds from the time the car rolled to a stop into its pit-box to the time the refueller pulled the rig out of the car. For that stop, only the front tyres needed to be changed and the whole stop required roughly 1 min 09 seconds from the time the car stopped at its box to the time it gets out. Later stops which required all 4 tyres to be changed clocked at between 1min 30sec to 1min 50sec. By contrast, I watched the No 12 Lotus Exige being refuelled (one of the leading competitors the HMRT Civics had to fight against during the race) and its refuelling alone using a fuel bottle took more than 2 min !! The other leading competitor, the no 19 Porsche 911 GT3 pitted way at the end of the pit-lane and rough estimation of its pit-stop puts it at more than 3 min. So it can be seen that the HMRT Civics gains between 1 to 2min for each pit-stop. And at 75 mins max each stint, the 12 hours endurance format meant that each car must stop at least 10 times or the HMRT Civics gained around 20 minutes for the whole race. Lap times for almost all the cars were hovering around the 2 min 30 - 40 sec range and this means from pit-stops alone, the HMRT Civics gained several laps !

The legendary Takahashi Kunimitsu waiting patiently for his turn to take the wheels of HMRT's No 27 Civic

However, the HMRT Civics were fast not just in pit-stops alone, they were very fast on the track as well. For most of the race, they were clocking around the same times as the No 19 Porsche 911 GT3s and the No 12 Lotus Exige. These two were the only car that were competitive with the Civics. As a whole, these 2 and the two HMRT Civics were actually clocking faster times than most of the Class O cars ! The Lamborghini however was thundering along at a pace no-one could hope to match - 20 seconds or more faster than the best times anyone else can muster. But everyone was just quietly waiting to see what will happen as the Lamborghini continued to push hard even in the extremely hot weather during the afternoon portion of the race, when everyone else were clearly easing back. Eventually the Lamborghini had to retired with reportedly gearbox problems.

While some might want to put down the HMRT acheivement as purely due to 'beginner's luck', luck is however something they didn't have. Around mid-way into the race, the leading Civic, car no 26 pitted and one of the wheel mounting studs on the front left suspension broke. As a result car no 26 had to be stopped to replace the suspension member. This took the greater part of 30 min, dropping it from P2 overall to P13 overall. Now, if there were any doubts as to the absolute speed of the HMRT Civics, these were quickly dispelled as no 26 Civic out-raced almost every car in front of it to finish the race in P3 overall, a gain of 9 places ! And those cars included one of the Radical SR3 open-seaters, a Class O Porsche 911 GT3, the Subaru WRX STi, a Mitsubishi EVO-6, the Lotus Elise 190 and several Class B and C cars. Finally in the last hour of the race, it exited its final pit-stop just seconds behind the No 12 Lotus Exige S2 and proceeded to over-take it on the track ! Indeed after that, a safety car period just a few laps from the end even gave it a shot at the 2nd placed No 19 Porsche 911 GT3 but unfortunately couldn't match it in pure raw speed and it had to settle for P3.

Candid shot of Honda Malaysia's CEO Seiji Kuraishi (far left) and HMRT manager Zainuddin Taib (far right) both of whom couldn't stop smiling as they make their way to the winner's podium after winning the race, making months of hard work all worthwhile !

No 27 HMRT Civic however had a quite uneventful race and finished the race in P1 overall, winning both Class A and the whole race outright, and a full 5 laps in front of the 2nd placed no 19 Porsche 911 GT3. A most magnificent victory indeed, and certainly from my viewpoint if Honda Malaysia had a bit better luck, we might well have won the race with a 1-2 finish !!

With all the attention of the HMRT Civics, I also feel a need to highlight the efforts of the other mainly privateer teams running Hondas in the race. Finishing in P7 overall is the No 98 car, a Class C 1.6l EK Civic, who out-raced the top Class B finisher (a 1.8 liter Proton Satria GTi) by 2 laps and in the process out-racing several Class A and even Class O cars as well ! Indeed such is the sheer excellence of Hondas in endurance racing that half of the top-ten overall positions were held by Honda cars. The 2 HMRT Civics, followed by the No 98 Class C Civic in P7, the No 33 Class A DC5 Integra Type-R of Team Tedco in P8 and finally another Class C Honda, the No 90 EK Civic in P10. Honda most definitely rules !

The screen says it all - car no. 27, P1, laps 265, and thus outright overall winner of the 2004 Merdeka Millenium Endurance 12 hours followed in P3 by car no. 26. Note positions P7, P8, and P10, all Hondas as well.

It's getting to be a habit and of course a most desireable one, to watch Honda personnel celebrate the acheivement of doing well in a race. To me, more importantly is how Honda Malaysia bravely went out with two cars that were condemned by many as 'slow' and 'uncompetitive' and silenced all critics by winning the race outright. In the end, I am particulary happy because it is now proven that my high regards for the 2.0l Civic is vindicated - the Honda Civic 2.0 i-VTEC has proven itself to be one fast car ! Honda's famous motto is The Power of Dreams and as has been proven now, with Honda, dreams most certainly do come true !

As usual, my deepest appreciation to Honda Malaysia for offering this priceless opportunity to share the experience of a race-winning team.