Malaysian Rally scene

Car rally is one of the motorsports that is pretty close to my heart.. the former 500cc motorcycle GP was my first love. Rallying requires such skill that even F1 drivers finds difficult.. Make no mistake : Rally drivers can just jump on the track & drive F1 cars.. but F1 drivers would need considerable guidance & tutorial before they can take on the gravel or dirt roads... having said that, AFAIK, Kimi Raikonnen have raced rally cars with some success after his retirement from F1.

In Malaysia, Karamjit Singh & rally is like husband & wife. Karamjit is the undisputed King of Rally or as he was fondly called,"King of the Estates".. as most of rally tracks in Malaysia goes through Felda settlements. He was WRC Asia Pacific Rally champion for 3 straight years, from 1998.. & he was Malaysia's first ever World Champion in motorsports, winning the WRC Group N (production cars) in 1999. This despite the lack of support he got from the govt, who instead prefer to waste money, effort & time into supporting Alex Yoong to be the F1 tail-ender of the year back in .. I forgot which year. It was THAT insignificant.

I remember in the 2000 Merdeka endurance race, Karamjit Singh smoked the entire field to win comfortably, a field which included seasoned Touring Car drivers & also our first ever F1 driver, Mr Alex Yoong himself. This shows how good Karamjit was. & he still is. Karamjit won the final leg of the recently concluded Malaysian Rally Championship, racing an ageing Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII.

I was baffled with the lack of support the govt had towards this excellent driver. He was racing for PERT during his venture into APRC in the late 90s, using an ageing Evo V at that time, with limited technical support & all. Yet he still emerged as champion 3 straight years. & when he decided to race the WRC (World Rally Championship) Group N in 1999, still the govt decided not to support him. Yet he still emerged champion. World Champion that is. In the days when Nicol David was still finding her footing in squash.. Karamjit had already been the world champion.

I had bumped into him once. I was having breakfast in Shah Alam & there he was, sitting at the opposite table, having roti canai & reading newspaper. I've read somewhere that Karamjit is a man of few words. Still, the tall, handsome world champion had a kind of aura surrounding him, the aura of a journeyman who'd been through a lot I guess..

I hope the govt can give more support into sportsman like this. I dun think Karamjit is looking for titles.. Dato' or Tan Sri.. he was just doing what he loves most : driving cars & winning races. I'm sure at times it would've been very frustrating. But He kept going on.

Mr. Karamjit Singh : I salute U.

Livestrong.