speedwaymalaysia

Videos uploaded for FIM sanctioned "Malaysian International Speedway Cup" held on the 27 Oct 2007 13 videos of the event night and 7 videos of the Thursday practice days have now been uploaded at our temporary site below: http://speedwaymalaysia.blogspot.com/ Please kindly relay this message to all those who maybe interested. Thank you all,

speedway malaysia is interested to discuss with current and ex-speedway riders, mechanics or just those knowledgeable in speedway in playing a role for speedway's development in malaysia. 2008, 2009 and 2010 are going to be exciting years for speedway not only in malaysia but hopefully in the region as well. the promoter has a 30 year experience in developing motorsports in malaysia. amongst the key roles he played were as promoter and organiser of the motoGP from 1991 to 1996 at shah alam circuit which he managed as the lease holder for 10 years. he had also started the first ever asian single seater car racing series (formula asia) which had rounds in indonesia, malaysia, india, china and thailand from 1995 to 1996 by buying 20 cars from david sears of norfolk in england and had brought in 8 english mechanics and engineers to work on the cars and be placed with teams. the formula asia series proved instrumental in grooming malaysia's alex yoong (the promoter's son), india's narain karthikeyan and iondonesia's ananda mikola who raced in this series when they were aged 14 to 17...they later went to higher levels in europe. this promoter of speedway in malaysia had also set at the international water ski federation's executive board in the 90s and had also assisted to organised the first and only water ski world championship in singapore in 1993 as the event director. the promoter's name is hanifah yoong yin fah and google searches will result in more info. he is interested to effect a plan to get ex-speedway riders or mechanics/present riders of lower national series involved in managing 500cc teams with equity given free to him provided they match the economic, enthusiasm and experience qualifications expected. presently, speedway malaysia has ivan mauger as advisor, linden warner as resident coach and matthias rohde (german licenced referee) to assist but need more. ivan commutes to malaysia when needed while linden and matthias have been residing in malaysia for the last 17 years on-and-off. anyone interested or just to chat with him please email office@speedwaymalaysia.com ideally we have speedway experienced europeans, australians and new zealand who are working or living in singapore, or thailand or indonesia contacting us. thank you all.

we don't have surname in our malaysian passports just name and we insert our full names. but if we check into a hotel in europe, the last name in the above in red text will be listed as the surname. so, for the ranking list you may want to say HAMZAH ("surname") Helmy (given name) hope this helps...

Mohd Helmey Hamzah Mohd Ariff Mohd Ali Rody Sofian Buang Mohd Abdussobur (Sobur) Turino Mohd HaniffBorhan the first 2 names are given names and the commentators and reporters will call them by the names in bold. the name in red is their fathers' names. but then we don't call helmey "mr. hamzah" as this is like calling his father...so the muslims in malaysia are called by their given names if we want to use honorifics like mr. etc.

great high resolution photos at: http://www.speedwaymalaysia.blogspot.com/ NEW ZEALAND'S RICKY WEST WINS ASIA'S FIRST INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY CUP IN MALAYSIA Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Sunday, 28 Oct 2007: New Zealand's 16 year old Ricky Wells thrilled thousands with dominant skills to win Asia's first ever FIM sanctioned speedway event held in Malaysia, the Malaysian International Speedway Cup, in Kuala Lumpur last night (27th Oct). He scored the maximum 12 points in the heats and recorded the fastest ever time at Speedway Malaysia's Family Park track with a time of 56.68s in heat 3. Sam Taylor, 26, also from New Zealand but competing under the Australian flag won 2 heats and scored 12 points in the preliminar heats, tried hard to beat Wells in the grand final race but had to settle for second. Competing for Britain after a long layoff from speedway, Linden Warner beat Japan's Hideaki Ota to third to grab the last podium spot. Five young Malaysians who had never riden a 500cc speedway bike before 5 weeks ago could not match the winners over four laps but they won the crowd's and the foreign riders respect as they were able to race them for the initial laps. Eighteen year old Mohd Helmey Hamzah eventually won the consolation final to win the coveted "best Malaysian" trophy from 21 year old reserve rider Mohd Ariff Mohd Ali. Ariff replaced Rody Sofian Buang after Rody had to retire from a recurring collar bone problem after a fall in heat 4. The glittering prize presentation ceremony complete with the raising of the national flags and the winner's national anthem and confetti was officiated by the Deputy Minister of Youth & Sports Malaysia, Dato' Liow Tiong Lai. At the post event press conference after his win, a jubilant Wells praised the Malaysian organisers and the Malaysian rookies for putting up a very good show saying, "This is my first international and I'm very happy to be on the record as the first ever winner of a first winner of an Asia Speedway Cup. The organising was very slick and the Malaysian boys amazed me with their performance as they had so little time on a proper speedway bike before this as compared to my 8 years in the sport. The sport can go very far in Malaysia." “It was not an easy win … Sam was very fast as well and always pushing me from behind and I had to stay focus and push all the way throughout the race,” added Wells, whose achievement list included the 2007 US under-21 overall champion and the US Youth National Champion titles in 2005 and 2004. Taylor had similar praises for the Malaysians, "I was here in July to demo the 500cc speedway bike in Malaysia's first ever speedsway event when not a single Malaysian has ever riden in speedway before. They had then just started on the 115cc small bikes. In a little over 3 months and a bit, they suddenly have a dozen Malaysian capable of racing with riders with 8 and more years experience. The Malaysians will definitely be giving us a big hurry up in next year's Malaysian International Speedway Cup." “Looking at the event, I feel that the prospect of the sports progressing further is very good. The cost of having the speedway tracks and organizing the races are quite low as compared to many other events,” said Deputy Minister of Youth & Sports Dato' Liow, who also proposed that speedway tracks be built in all the states to popularize the sport further. “Speedway racing has proven to be a popular sport among our youths especially among our rempits (illegal road racers).There is definitely a huge market for the sport and I hope more parties will come forward and play their part in promoting this sport,” he added. Meanwhile, Malaysian Best rider, 18 year old Muhammad Helmy Hamzah thanked his family and friends for his achievement. “Speedway has changed me from a former rempit (illegal road racer) to a professional rider. This sport has taught me to be a disciplined and a better person. It’s the best thing that has happened to me,” he said. Representing Speedway Malaysia, Hanifah Yoong said the good progress of this new sport of speedway in Malaysia owes it's success to many people and organisations, "Without the foresight of the Minister of Youth & Sports Malaysia, Dato' Seri Azalina to support the implementation of the speedway project, the invaluable advice of Ivan Mauger, the support of the FIM and AAM, the training of key officials by Matthias Rohde and the coacing of Linden Warner as well as the dedication of the scores of officials and riders, we will not be here tonight celebrating the year's efforts in this prestigious and historical event which Malaysia made her mark." Speedway Malaysia also announced that next season's 2008 calendar will be released shortly before the end of November. FULL RESULTS: 1. Ricky Wells (NZL), 2. Sam Taylor (AUS), 3. Linden Warner (GBR), 4. Hideaki Ota (JPN), 5. Mohd Helmy Hamzah (MAL), 6. Mohd Ariff Mohd Ali, 7. Mohd Abdussobur Turino (MAL), 8. Mohd Haniff Borhan (Malaysia)

i appreciate your comment. joking aside, if not for the "mopeds" which had the weight reduced from 90kg to 48kg and with some mods on fuel tank, lowered chassis, different wheel size, carbs, footrest and handle bar etc, malaysia will never have started. these 115cc to 150cc road bikes are our bike industry's bread & butter! therefore it makes commercial sense to start with these machines which are sold in their hundreds of millions in asia. seriously, can someone remember which country was the last entry into speedway in the recent last 2 decades? and how did they start? straight into 500cc jawas? the 80cc, 125cc speedway bikes were only started not long ago and 250cc was just a year or two ago? don't be surprised if malaysia will be racing in proper speedway 500cc made in malaysia with a better version than possibly stuha and maybe within a couple of years to 5 years might be on par with jawa? to succeed in this sport, malaysia needs to do within 10 years what other established speedway strong countries in europe took 30 years to achieve. and then hopefully all countries in the s.e.asian region might want to follow this route that malaysia takes which will cost a fraction of how the last country to enter speedway in the recent decades. absolutely agreed with you. and IMG too should invest in us instead of pushing for a world championship event straight away. we need FIM licenced referees and our FMN is only now exploring the rules of speedway. we are lucky we have matthias rohde who is volunteering his time to be the referee every saturday night. matthias used to race in germany in the 80s and he had been living in malaysia in penang for 20 years now. he has a german FMN referee licence and is also a qualified FIM race official as an environmental officer. our thanks absolutely to ivan mauger, linden warner (GBR) who is assisting ivan in coaching our guys on the jawa 500cc and matthias rohed to assist us to take off. hope you guys from europe understand our stand. thank you all for supporting our project.

yes, ivan had trained some 60 riders, 42 of whom are taking part in the inaugural under 21, under 25 and open speedway championships in malaysia.

here are some clips: Speedway Malaysia's first race meeting - U-21 Grand Final race: Speedway Malaysia's first race meeting - Sam Taylor & Andrew Aldridge Jawa 500cc Demo race: Speedway Malaysia's first race meeting - National Anthem opening: enjoy...

great pics of the event now uploaded at: http://speedwaymalaysia.blogspot.com/

MALAYSIA OPENS A HISTORICAL CHAPTER FOR ASIA IN SPEEDWAY MOTORCYCLE RACING Kiwi champions test Malaysia's Speedway circuit ahead of first race weekend this Saturday night Do visit the temporary site at: http://speedwaymalaysia.blogspot.com/ for all the latest updates on the development of Speedway racing in Malaysia - a first for Asia. The first race weekend is tonight in the heart of Kuala Lumpur!

photos of track as of 18 july 2007 uploaded here: http://speedwaymalaysia.blogspot.com/

thanks for the tiscali site which showed that the first race was held in singapore in 1930... it looked like it was a one-off attempt of one race... the malaysians will have to re-angle their claims to as follows: "Organising the first Asian Speedway race in the modrn era of Speedway racing." or "Organising the first ever Speedway championship in Asia." ...both these statements are true.

thanks nev. he was full of praise for the malaysians...good motivation for the boys and girls involved in the project here in malaysia. anybody coming this way this month or anytime give me a message and we can meet up at the track or for the events. first event is the under 21 championship round 1 on 21 july and races every saturday night till december. we have 4 jawas 500cc with us and some events will have demos by speedway racers from overseas on these machines. for the opening round we have 2 new zealanders coming over to do the demos of 2 times of 4 laps. they are sam taylor and andrew aldridge.

hi guys, i'm posting from kuala lumpur. there is a blogsite at: http://speedwaymalaysia.blogspot.com/ where we will update development as they occur...this is an interim measure as we are now quite busy getting the track ready for the first ever night event in 2 weeks. a more professional website will be up very soon. thanks for all the kind words of encouragement from all of you. as for how it all started, we mooted the idea more than 2 decades ago but decided to concentrate in the motoGP first...we promoted the first malaysian motorcycle grand prix for 125cc, 250cc and 500cc bikes (as it was called then) in 1991 and organised it till 1996. in 2002 we put in a proposal to the ministry of sports in malaysia to develop speedway racing but it was not until late last year when we gave it a real push. when we had the confirmation of support we got to contact ivan mauger in march this year but he was busy doing his annual trips to europe and us of a. he got over to meet us in may for the launch not knowing if it was a 5minute project or a one-year project but he soon discovered that it will be a project to stay for the next 100 years, God willing. he had been a real help and we gained plenty from his experience. he was rather pleased that we finally has some movement for this sport in asia.