Just two weeks to go before the inaugural KL City Grand Prix takes place on August 7-9 – event organiser GT Global Race is making final preparations for the street race, which it says is expected to draw a crowd of around 100,000.
However, not everyone is in the same buoyant mood, The Malay Mail reports. Publicity on the event has been sparse thus far, and many of those working, conducting businesses and living around the race zone are claiming that they are in the dark about the event and are thinking of alternatives to brave the expected traffic congestion.
Taxi drivers have voiced their grouses too, complaining of a loss of income during the race weekend as roads around the area will be closed off. The police are also reportedly unimpressed with the safety aspects, adding there have been more questions than answers in the way things have developed thus far.
Concrete barriers and metal fences have been erected along Jalan Ampang, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Jalan Raja Chulan, Jalan Tun Perak and Jalan P. Ramlee, and aside from being an eyesore, the barricading work has raised security and safety concerns, the publication says.
The barricades are preventing those wanting to hail taxis or waiting for buses from standing safely in designated areas and forcing them to stand on the road, and many pedestrians have had to negotiate their way though the barricades by finding an opening between them. The publication added that in a five-hour walkabout a couple of days ago, it observed that pedestrians were forced to walk on the road in some areas.
Meanwhile, GT Global Race says it will be cooperating with DBKL, the police, Jabatan Sukarelawan Malaysia and its own security team to ensure that the event runs smoothly.
The three-day event will see drivers racing on a 3.2 km-long, 16-turn temporary Grade 3 circuit, and the recently resurfaced roads used for the track will be closed from 6 pm on August 6 to 5 am on August 10.
The event will see various races such as the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Cup, Formula Masters, Porsche Carrera Cup Asia and Audi R8 LMS Cup as well as an exhibition run of the Australian V8 Supercar race series.
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They should change the location to Putrajaya. it’s more practical. Use the similar track used by formula e event.
Can those sozai just grab a steering wheel and play need for speed at home? It is really stupid racing in the city trouble everyone. I am expecting the drop of my sales around 35 cars every affected day.
No place to rempit lah.
on the plus side, the roads that are part of the race track is super smooth even when you drive over the manhole covers. If only all of our roads are this smooth
It will be super smooth after the race. With the tractor removing baricade.
Not only that. They also erect the concrete fences without proper barrier and warning to other road users. The fences were erected on the rightmost lane where people tend to drive faster.
Some of the fences were not finished and stucked at the roadside, protruding the lane without warning. I almost hit the fence while driving there.
They should put warning signs and cones to make road users more aware of the fences. its always better to prevent than to cure.
I thought the Putrajaya street circuit used for Formula E race was quite nicely done, with professional looking barriers and all. And it had some nice views of the bridges and buildings there. Of course the KL City race will have the Twin Towers as the backdrop. Hope they can rectify the safety concerns cos that part of Jalan Ampang is a busy area even on weekends (unlike Putrajaya which is very quiet). So they must also consider how to re-route traffic into surrounding areas (due to the closed roads), which I believe requires approval by the relevant authorities.
As long as I can see Volvo Polestar team in flesh, I’m happy. Bring on the race. Heja Sverige!
Remember the original fast & Furios on the pizza delivery guy? He said, “God damn street racers.”
the safety concrete barricades placed around the area are a hassle for normal day public. access to most road side shops is limited, pedestrians are walking on the road, some turns are dangerous because the blocks are blocking the view, etc. Hopefully this will not be an annual event because the public would have to face 2 months of traffic nuisance.
still fell its really irresponsible to hold a race on a normal working day, considering how congested those roads are, couldn’t they have hold the race in somewhere more suitable? *shakes my head*
‘Plain Stupid’ would be the phrase to describe it.
3 days event in downtown K.L. It will create massive jams around the roads leading to K.L. town center.
Putrajaya would have been a better choice. Probably the event organiser, GT Global Race thinks they can attract more crowd by having in KL…
The “Best” thing is, they block the road start from Friday, like ppl no need to work.
Actually this even is just for the weekend and why am I not surprised to hear complains from taxi drivers, again? Looks like taxi drivers are trying to get publicity at any given chances. Don’t even get me started on taxi driver horror stories and how they treat us.
IMO, I think its a good idea to have a GP Street Race within KL area. In fact, this will boost tourism and sales around that area and taxi drivers will get more customers going to and from the event.
Putrajaya might have better roads, but based on the Formula E race previously, the respond was not that good. For most people, Putrajaya is “too far” and lack of public transport to even get there. Just look at Singapore and how they managed to squeeze in F1 race in their city.
The key is about proper management and proper execution plan. If done right, this could be a very interesting and intense race. I think its about time the organizers updated their websites with the list of races and types of cars competing.
the only things Malaysian know is complain and blame government . I fully support an annual strret race event
This is the best chance to test our ‘efficient’ DBKL.
Give this event a chance, let see if all related parties will make it a successful event.
BTW, just avoid that area during that 3 days.
Avoid that area? There are offices there that still operates on Friday. How do you expect the thousands of workforce (myself included) based in the affected area to avoid THAT area? Enlighten us please.
GT Global Race to provide free transportation as compliment to whose affacted working area on Fri and half day of Sat? Or someone declare pubic holiday for kl? LOL
LRT, Monorail got, still wanna drive? Kemaslanan apa ni?
That’s it la, I wanna campaign for RM40/hour parking rate. Mamja nak mampus bodoh kat sini, tak leh nak naik tren langsung!
Oi bodoh..u pikir semua tempat ada train?u pikir mrt dah siap?
Mukhriz should instead ask to bring the race to Alor Star lah..
Please if you are going to report – get your facts right – Audi R8 LMS Cup has been off the schedule for nearly a month now.
They will race in Sepang early September.
Makes me wonder what else has been falsely reported in this article.
I personally know the KL City Grand Prix management team have put in a Herculean effort to get this completed in a short period of time.
So, instead of negative reporting – get behind the event and make it a success.
The first one is always the worst one logistically – so get behind the first edition – support it – as the following years will be superb.
Sleep in the office or book a hotel room nearby your office for a night.
Typical Malaysian mentality like small child always asked to be spoon fed.
Pretty stupid comment – why should the rakyat be penalized by having to fork out extra money just for some idiots to run circles around the city?
Economically, many man-hours have been lost due to resurfacing works, walking around KL (although generally not safe to begin with) is now more dangerous with pedestrian crossings no longer marked and a whole host of other issues to deal with.
Come back with better comments when you live in the real world.
hahahahha….no event gonna happen becoz the country is plagued with so many scandals, songlap money cases, etc…
Businessmen and investors are running away from Malaysia…
Looking forward to getting pissed at the track with all my aussie bogan mates!! p.s. are there any good night clubs where i can get totaALLED like every night in straya, oi oi oi