Commons

After higher studies, the old gang who was with me didn’t meet in a very long time, the reasons were everyone was working and we didn’t have many free days in common and of course some were not in the country as well.

Althaf was in UK for some time and he finally came back to SL, so we decided to meet up. The meeting place was Commons. It was a really nice feeling to meet the old gang. Of course everyone was not there but at least everyone on SL could get together.

Serenity

Located near Awissawella, Serenity is a love at first sight. The Natural Swimming pool is the main highlight of the place. Serenity is a good place for a day outing for a small group.

Back View

Natural Swimming pool

A small waterfall

A Hut

Singapore

After visiting Malaysia myself, my mother and sister came to Singapore for short tour, we were in Singapore from 7th September 2010 to 10th September 2010. Compared to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore is not very beautiful as I hope it would be. The best memory during the visit was going to Sentosa Islands.

Dolphins at Sentosa

Merlion at Sentosa

Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur (KL) is a city which is not too big yet you can find most of the things there in it. I went to KL just for a holiday visit with my mother and sister. I was there from 3rd September 2010 to 7th September 2010 before leaving to Singapore. During the visit my main intention was to buy some good electronics, and of course have a nice time, so visit we visited many places in and around KL and of course Genting Highlands.

Cable cars to Genting Highlands

Petronas Twin Towers

KL Tower

Ira Handa Yata poster campaign

It has been a very busy month but can’t turn down a favor asked by a good friend. Udara’s new movie is due to start on 2nd September 2010 and it’s just a week more to go. It was the day they selected to put up the posters and banners in Colombo. Though I was very busy I joined the campaign and covered the entire greater Colombo area.

We started from the Technical Junction, Maradana. Soon as we got down there we noted that all the other posters were removed and walls and everything was very clear. Despite that we started our task, and then we came to the Maradana junction and started putting up posters, before we finished posting the last set of posters police encountered us and told us not to paste posters on Maradana because there is some city cleaning project. So we went to our next location; Fort. From there onwards we faced no trouble from anyone and the task was completed better than we expected.

Link(s): www.irahandayata.com

Paintball Shooting

Since we wanted to plan a team outing we decided to go for paintball shooing. Paintball shooting is a little dangerous game, but it’s really good in team building. So we have made a reservation at Excel World for this team event. We had about 11 people but 3 of them got scared and didn’t participate at the end. So we were limited to 8 people.

We were given paintball guns each loaded with 125 paintballs, a mask and a jacket. Soon after we put on the safety gear we were given instructions on the game. We could play 3 games in the given time and after each game we have to switch sides and blah blah… But the most important part was the handling of the gun. It’s operated by compressed air and a can of compressed air was fitted to each gun together with the container for paintballs. There is a safety button and a puller if the gun got jammed.

Four of us in my team went to our side as instructed and as the instructor blew the whistle we started the first game. We made an impressive start but I got shot in the mask and the game was over for me. Then there was a break for about 5 minutes and the game 2 started, we defended most of the time till the opponents ran out of ammo. Soon as I figured they were out of ammo I ran into their territory and got them surrendered. Then we quickly collected the paintballs which were on the ground and prepared for the third game. Since we knew everyone was running low on paintballs we saved the paintballs and fired fake shots. One of our team members got shot and luckily he left behind his gun. I grabbed that gun as well. And I started a little Rambo action with 2 guns in my hands and it went terribly wrong. I got shot just like in a movie, a guy comes breaking in with 2 guns shooting like crazy and gets shot :P. It was game over for me.

A paintball

Formula McLaren racing at Pannala

In Sri Lanka we don’t have Formula 1 cars or GP2 cars. The best we have also cannot be compared with any of the cars mentioned above. There are couple of types of Formula cars in Sri Lanka, namely Formula Ford and Formula McLarens (LGB). Formula McLarens are powered by a 1300cc engines whereas the Formula Fords has a little more power.

The car i drove at Pannala

I got to know about a Formula training program conducting in Sri Lanka, this is the first time I have heard of such a training program conducted in Sri Lanka. The Asian Motor Racing Association (AMRC) has brought down an ex Formula 1 license holder Akbar Ebrahim to get the training done. I signed up for the program after doing some research on the trainer. The practice session was scheduled on 12th and 13th of June 2010 from 10.00am to 6.00pm on both days at the Pannala racing track. The AMRC provided us transport from SpeedRome to Pannala and the way back on both days.

Giving advice to the drivers

We the drivers got in to the bus and went to Pannala race track. It’s my first time at Pannala; most of the other drivers had previous experience at Pannala track. We arrived at Pannala late due to traffic and had couple of rain showers on the way. Luckily it wasn’t raining at Pannala but it was a cloudy day and the track was wet. As we arrived we were briefed by Mr. Akbar and the drivers were divided in to three groups because we only had 9 cars. Then the lessons started both theory and more practical. Mr. Akbar been a professional trainer gave us very useful advice. Since the Formula cars are build with the least complicated parts without the theory no one would have survived. The very first theory lesson included driving techniques like Blip to get the maximum traction from the rear wheels at corners, late breaking, in-slow out-fast and lot more. Once we were sent to the track we had to follow the safety car in the first few laps. That gave me an idea on the track. Pannala track is only 1.4 kilometers long, but it had all sort of corners, straights and so on. After the safety car went in to the pits the real practice started. I spun several times at the last corner and during the last practice on Saturday I crashed the car but myself and the car was not damaged. Saturday there were many incidents, but according to Mr. Akbar the incidents were nothing big. Sunday was the qualifying and our lap timing was taken in to account. During qualifying a somewhat serious incident happened to one of the cars. That happened at the same place where I crashed on previous day. During Qualifying 1 it was yellow flagged for 2 laps out of 5 laps for the batch I was racing. Despite that out of all 27 drivers (from all 3 batches) I was rated 7th from the lap timing on Qualifying 1. However the Qualifying 2 was a disaster for me, I again spun at the last corner and lost lot of time and couldn’t carry the pace for the next lap as well so my timing in Q2 was worse than in Q1.

Car crashes - Left: my car, Right: some other car

Then there was a simulation of a race and simulation of safety car deployment, after that each batch started the race. I started from the 4th position due to my Q2 timing. Formation lap started and I warmed up my tyres for the race, came to the grid and as the green flag waved I started my race. I had a really good start placing myself just behind the car in the 3rd position. It was a generally slow car and I managed to pass that in the first lap itself. After a couple of laps I passed the car in the 2nd position too but soon later I did a mistake and lost a position. In lap before the final lap the car in the 2nd position did a mistake and I took the maximum advantage of it. I saw the chequered flag just after the guy in 1st position. I really wished I had few more laps, at that time I was closing in on the car in the 1st position continuously.

My car before the Qualifying

We all had a good session and I’m so glad I came 2nd in my race, and I’m evermore happy with the rating I got during the Qualifying. There were some well experienced drivers as well as rookie formula drivers so overall I’m very happy with the session and specially the advices from Mr. Akbar. My body was hurting from the first day but after the 2nd day we all were exhausted. But the fun and the experience were well worth it.

Captions from the race

Race start

Link(s): http://www.amrcspeed.lk