Catching up with members of Sarawak Motorsports Association (SMA) and their concerns on illegal racing

Big thanks to Sarawak Mo­tor­sports As­so­ci­a­tion (SMA) led by its pres­i­dent, Dato Sri Ah­mad Dato Ibrahim who led del­e­ga­tion to pay a cour­tesy call to my office at Ban­gu­nan Baitul­mak­mur II in Pe­tra Jaya on April 19. During the visit, they re­lated to me con­cerns re­gard­ing il­le­gal and dan­ger­ous rac­ing and hence, Sarawak needs a proper rac­ing cir­cuit “com­plete with safety as­pects.

Dato Sri Ah­mad Ibrahim had also de­scribed mo­tor­sports as one of the most pop­u­lar sports in the coun­try and among the ba­sic needs of the in­dus­try are fa­cil­i­ties such as rac­ing cir­cuits that are com­plete with safety as­pects. According to him, there is a very high de­mand from mo­tor­sports fans and com­mu­nity in Sarawak for us to have a com­plete rac­ing cir­cuit or track fa­cil­ity and can be a plat­form for the devel­op­ment of this sport.

Dato Sri Ah­mad, who is also Padawan Mu­nic­i­pal Coun­cil deputy chair­man, added that apart from rac­ing fa­cil­i­ties, knowl­edge or tech­nique of ve­hi­cle han­dling skills is also an im­por­tant as­pect for some­one who wants to be in­volved in the field of mo­tor­sports which is full of chal­lenges and high risks. He had com­ment­ed on a re­cent accident in the park­ing area of the Sarawak Sta­dium in Petra Jaya which was used as a place for mo­tor­sports fans to race. 

SMA had taken this is­sue se­ri­ously and as you know, this is not the first in­ci­dent that oc­curred in the area in which among the main rea­sons is that the area is a park­ing lot and not a rac­ing cir­cuit. In ad­di­tion to that, there is no safety as­pects are im­ple­mented and there is no su­per­vi­sion from cer­ti­fied race of­fi­cers or mar­shals in the area.