On Cloud Nine Pt. 2 - "V009" actually made 9th!!!
That's right, folks. I was "upgraded" to 9th!
Damn the organizers, or praise 'em, rather? - because the official race classification came in almost a week later!
Slackers.
This is something akin to what happened to Jarno Trulli in the opening F1 season on the same day as my race. Lewis Hamilton was eventually disqualified from his third placing and Trulli bumped up to third from fourth.
Apparently legendary Pat "Pig Pen" Brunsdon (V012) and "Ironman" supremo Wan Shahidan (V019) had jumped the gun. In Pat's and Wan Shahidan's case, there were so gung ho on starting (a bit like being kiasu laa) that they started off at the first flag-off in the Open Class.
They were supposed to start off with us, about 10 minutes after the Open flag-off. It was a bit chaotic I suppose since there are hundreds of us jammed on that small lane waiting for the Pajero to lead us on a rolling start. The Pajero had some dudes in the rear holding a huge Selangor flag ready to "drop it". So these two decided to trail the Open pack I guess, thinking the Vet class race was going to be on a slightly different and shorter route. In Pat's case the marshalls made him go on the longer Open Class route (see note above), Buy why Wan Shahidan was positioned 18th I wouldn't know. He must have committed a bigger sin like failing to pass a checkpoint (shortcut?) or something when he actually had the fastest time.
In any event I'm a happy puppy.
Like everything else in life, we should play by the rules and hope to "get lucky" sometimes.