A recent article to share with you guys, from the S'pore Straits Times:
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To Genting and back on one tank of petrol
A regular car. 50 litres of petrol. 840km of road, some of it uphill. Yet, Mr John Taylor does it with gas to spare
By Justin Lee
LAST weekend I participated in a record-breaking event that many sceptics said couldn't be done.
John Taylor (left), who went on a long driving stunt trip to Genting Highlands. This feat has earned him a place in the Malaysia Book of Records.
In a Subaru Impreza 1.6 TS, with a standard 50-litre fuel tank, Mr John Taylor drove from Singapore to Genting Highlands and back without refuelling.
The total distance covered was 838.5km and, when he returned to Singapore, there were still 7.75 litres of petrol left in the tank.
Mr Taylor, a fit 50-year-old Australian from Melbourne, claims that this is the longest distance ever covered by a car here on a single tank.
Quite obviously, he is no ordinary driver. In fact, he is mentioned in the Guinness Book Of Records for driving over 2,300km in a diesel Peugeot 406 HDi with a standard 70-litre fuel tank.
The vehicle he used for this local record-breaking feat was a Subaru Impreza TS, part of the local Subaru dealer's rental fleet.
Apart from the tyres, which are Yokohama's latest C-Drive tyres that have low-rolling resistance to provide better fuel economy, the car is standard stock.
The petrol tank was topped up with Shell Formula 98 at the Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim station and sealed in front of three witnesses.
Both the tyres and petrol used are standard items that can be purchased by anybody.
No weight saving tactics, such as removing the spare tyre or overinflating the tyres, were used. In fact, there was even a duffle bag of clothes for the weekend in the boot.
The drive was part of Shin Min's annual Fun Drive and, while most of the participants had a scheduled lunch stop at Malacca before heading towards Genting Highlands, I was to navigate Mr Taylor directly to the final destination with a single toilet stop en route.
We set off from Raffles Marina at 7.30am. Our route would take us on the Second Link and up the North-South Highway on to Kuala Lumpur before heading east towards Kuantan and turning off for Genting after passing Batu Caves.
The first thing one notices about the way Mr Taylor drives is how gentle he is with the car.
'After a few hours with the car, I can feel that it is most comfortable at just under 2,000rpm and I try to keep the engine steady at this figure. The secret is to keep the revs as constant as possible,' he explains.
At 2,000rpm, the Impreza is cruising at a leisurely 70kmh, which means practically everyone is zooming past us. But this doesn't worry him. Instead, with the windows down and his hand resting on the sill, he is enjoying the gentle breeze that is blowing in.
'I always drive with the window down and often with bare feet, as it allows me to feel the accelerator better,' he shares.
What about the parachute effect that open windows have, trapping the air within the passenger compartment rather than flowing around and above the car if the windows are closed?
'Yes, at speeds above 80kmh, an open window does have this effect, but we aren't travelling fast enough for this to happen,' he explains.
The other reason he has the windows open is to gauge the wind direction.
'Do you feel the crosswind?' he asks. 'The worst thing you can have is a headwind blowing against you, but if there's a slight tailwind, or a crosswind from the rear, then you're in luck.'
Another fuel saving tactic he uses is to allow the car to gather momentum on a downward slope and let this natural inertia push the car part of the way up the following incline, all the time trying to keep the revs constant.
After about 100km, he points to the fuel gauge to show that the needle has still not moved from F.
By the time we reach Seremban, the storm clouds that had been gathering since we started finally drop their load.
'Rain is not a good sign - firstly, there is often a headwind to deal with, and also a loss of traction. See the spray from the wheels, that's energy being wasted,' says Mr Taylor.
True enough, despite the rpm being constant, our speed slows down to around 65kmh, down from the 70kmh we held when the conditions were dry.
In drives like this, if the rain gets bad, he prefers to stop the car and wait for it to pass. In this case, the rain passed before we reached the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, so we continue driving.
Getting through KL proper at around noon proves to be quite a challenge as even the expressways are jammed. Although we are crawling for about a half hour, Mr Taylor does not switch off the engine. He explains that, while it would save fuel, it would also void any record-breaking attempt with Guinness officials.
Even greater challenges continue after leaving KL as the route starts its climb to Genting Highlands.
This is when he starts talking to the car, coaxing it along. The steep inclines mean shifting into the lower gear ratios but he only uses first and second gears for just a few seconds to give the car a push before changing up to third and fourth.
'This may look easy to you, but I'm actually working really hard with the gears and just feathering the accelerator to keep the revs below 2,000rpm,' he says. 'It is times like these when it's so easy to just give in, but it would blow everything we've worked for all along the way.'
Half jokingly, he suggests leaning forward to help matters.
Despite the nerve-wracking last few kilometres, the petrol gauge showed that we have made it all the way up to Genting - a distance of 420km - with 2/3 of a tank untouched.
This proves to be more than enough for the return journey, which takes place two days later.
In many ways, an economy drive is more akin to sailing than driving.
One has to take note of the road situation, whether it is uphill or downhill, and the prevailing wind conditions, learning to 'read the wind' by looking at the trees.
And you shouldn't be bothered by being overtaken by practically everything on the road, sometimes even 125cc motorcycles.
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