B roads are addictive. If you are a motorhead, or claim to be one, you should tell yourself that every few weeks or so you’d take a long drive for no apparent reason just to be as one with your automobile. It isn’t exactly like taking your car to Sepang or the local race track, which is as fun or sometimes better, or worse depending on some factors but it is a way to bond with your surroundings, your car and yourself.
Now we take a look at the ultimate B road /race series, Initial D. This manga/anime did wonders in telling its audience and readers what’s it like to be a backroad racer/driver. It tells of a tale of how Takumi with his 86, or hatchiroku in Japanese conquering the hills surrounding Gunma province. The story basically starts with him delivering tofu to a resort via a long and winding mountainside road driving a Toyota Levin AE86 beating the heck out of most supposedly hillside racers while on the return run from delivering tofu. Here, we see a tiny Toyota take on Skyline GTRs, Evolutions, Sylvias and so on with just a very old mid 80s Toyota. Impossible odds it may seem but what the story tells you is that with familiarity and a slow build up of skill even the impossible is very much possible. In fact, you could actually replace the AE86 with a Proton Saga for a Malaysian version of this story.
By now you may think that I am talking a whole bunch of nonsense and decided that something like this is impossible. It isn’t actually as Malaysia has got fantastic B-roads and there are people who actually commute back and forth these b-roads which have tight hairpin corners, sweeping corners, switchback corners and so forth. I also believe in this fact because I recently discussed this fact with an old friend of mine after my recent road trip from Muar, Johor to Petaling Jaya where I decided to take the very long route from my stop at Jonker’s street in Melaka to Masjid Tanah – Port Dickson – Sepang – Elite Highway – Petaling Jaya. A usually 1 ½ hour journey from Melaka took me 3 hours of pretty amazing B-roads. I seriously never remembered passing through small villages like ‘Ramuan Cina Besar’ and ‘Ramuan Cina Kecil’ in those days when my father would take us to Melaka in the early 1980s. I really hope local governments or even the state government of Melaka don’t decide to rename villages like what the Kuala Lumpur mayor wanted to do to Jalan Alor. It makes an area lose its natural charm. Note that only going on B-roads you can find interesting little stories like this to write down in your memoirs. Blasting through the North South highway at 200km/h or more is memorable, but so’s this.
The discussion with my friend came about as I told him that somewhere after ‘Lubuk Cina’ in Melaka I was tailed by a very, very fast Proton Saga Iswara. I remember leaving him for dead in most of the straights, I was pushing my slightly modded 1.6 Impreza through most of the hairpins and undulations. The Impreza is a fantastic car for these sort of roads, 80-90km/h through the corners and amazingly, the little white Proton Saga kept up with me through the bends. I wasn’t that amazed, as he pulled off into a smaller side road, most probably to have his dinner at home, as I somehow felt that this chap may have been plying the route I took everyday for the last 5-10 years. But I did feel a bit miffed after that. I mean, you have about 120bhp, all wheel traction, 215/45/17 tires and more modern technology and this chap does exactly the same thing with about 95bhp, skinny 175/70/13 tires, and a car with 1980s technology.
My friend simply said that familiarity of the area and the car you’re driving makes a whole lot of difference and I wholeheartedly agree. He told me 2 tales which I shall share with you readers today. He was recently on his way down to the border town of Betong with his parents for some business and he was driving his dad’s w124 E200 somewhere near Lenggong, Perak. Doing about a brisk 90km/h on the windy stretch of road he was easily passed by a Proton Saga driven by a man in his late 30s, his wife and 2 kids in tow taking the corners, hairpins, switchbacks and all with a cigarette in his hand and with a nonchalant candour about him. He overtook my friend’s car like it wasn’t there, he wasn’t asking for a race or anything. He looked like he just wanted to get to where he wanted to be really quick. Not that the wife and kids in the car were complaining or feeling sick with hands flailing everywhere. They were sitting as if it were a normal drive in the park. Which according to my friend wasn’t, but looking at that chap, felt pretty much like routine to him.
The other story is even more amazing. Picture an Alfa Romeo 146 at the Johor Bahru to Kota Tinggi stretch. How it’s sweet sounding 1.7 liter boxer engine bouncing off the trees and hillslopes around the area. The driver enjoying the interaction between himself, the car and the road. He briskly reaches for a lower gear as he approaches a corner and takes it, as fast and as smoothly as he knows how to do so. However, he finds out that his moment is interrupted when he first notices an irritating rorty sound behind him. He takes a glance at his rear view mirror and finds out that the vehicle trailing him awfully closely is a……….
Ford Econovan with a cheap sounding aftermarket muffler……
….which then proceeds to overtake him at around 80 or 90km/h at a tight bend that they both had to take. The Econovan eventually did a ‘Takumi’ taking the next corner so fast that by the time our friend passed that corner this van was already 300 feet away from him and inching away. Two or three minutes later he can see the Econovan’s lights far away in the distance about a kilometre or so downhill. It made him seriously wonder whether the Alfa Romeo was a shitty car or that he was a total twit behind the wheel of a car as he slowed down to a decent pace of 60km/h while in deep thought.
These stories go to show that familiarity in a certain stretch of road does wonders. It does not matter what car, or in the case above, what van you drive as once you’ve mastered the vehicle, and the road, you’re the King of the mountainside roads.
Or maybe shouldn't think too hard on this, and we should all drive Ford Econovans and not a Hatchiroku (or a GTR, or a Lancer Evo) to be the next Initial D star. However I’ve been in a Ford Econovan before and you wouldn’t want to be driving fast in it. At all. You’d have to have balls of titanium to be able to drive that thing fast through any given corner, however skilful you are.
Or maybe, the God of hillside B-roads is a 30-something Ramly burger stall owner, who's late for his dinner in Kota Tinggi; and he drives a Ford Econovan with a cheap noisy muffler.
The Ford Econovan. Mostly sold with the 1.4liter 70bhp petrol engine. How about it? Want one now?
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