After a decade of thrills and excitement; a series of landmark changes and upgrading exercises,  Sepang’s 12-hour Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race (MMER) takes another transformation exercise for the 2010 edition; offering three new classes of competitions that are comparable to top international endurance races.

The 11th edition of the MMER, which will be held at Sepang Circuit from August 5 to 8, will feature the GT Class, the Sports Production Class and the Touring Production Class with strict conformity to the FIA sporting regulations; taking over from the open class, Class A1 and A2 that were introduced last year.

In a clear effort by SIC to take the MMER to a higher level and to attract more top professional foreign teams and drivers, it had also decided to revert back to a midnight start. That would see the 2010 race to be flagged off at the turn of the day on Sunday, August 8 and finishing 12 hours later at noon.

Hailed as another progressive move by promoters Sepang International Circuit (SIC), the introduction of the new classes was aimed at drawing more top international teams to the Malaysian race and to encourage more local teams to compete internationally.

“Basically, what we done this year is make our rules at the MMER similar to those adopted by top endurance races … it’s something that we at SIC does gradually … taking the MMER to a higher level and eventually, to make THE endurance race in the region,” SIC Chief Executive Office Razlan Razali told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today.

“When MMER started in 2000, it was more focus towards encouraging active local participation in motor racing. Hence, you had cars like Kembara, Kenari and Bufori participating and competing in five different classes.

“After 11 years, we believe it’s time to make the event a full-fledged competitive event of true world class level. Malaysian teams and drivers had shown that they are world class drivers … drivers like Jazeman Jaaafar in Formula BMW and Fariqe Hairuman at the Japan’s Super Taikyu. We want more Malaysians to venture overseas and compete in world class endurance races,” he added.    

The 10th edition of the MMER marked the most significant changes as the MMER was made exclusive for cars above 1900cc; with the sub-1900cc machines racing separately at the Sepang 1000-kilometer race that was held two months before the 12-hour endurance race.

The second edition of the S1K was held last month with Team Ultra Racing – featuring Kenny Lee, Christopher John O’ Shannessy and Hsiao Tung Wei in their 1600cc Toyota Levin taking the overall crown; beating inaugural champion Type R Racing Team that had Boy Wong Yew Choong, Soh Kee Koon and Tek Kean Kang behind the wheels of a Honda Integra DC2.

With the SIK title already in the bag, Ultra Racing would be searching for more honours at the MMER; this time featuring Kenny, Christopher and Chua Kuan Chew in a 2000cc Toyota Altezza for the Touring Production class.

They would again face the challenge of the Type R Racing trio, who were the inaugural winners last year in a Honda Integra DC5, which would again be their preferred machine for this year’s challenge.

Cars grouped under the Touring Production class would be the over 1900cc Group N cars under FIA Article 254; the over 1900cc Group A cars under FIA Article 255; and the above 1900cc non FIA homologated cars and the above 1900cc touring and saloon cars with diesel engines.

The premier GT class – which will be contested by the GT2, GT3 and Cup cars – would again witness two entries from PETRONAS Syntium Team that scored a sensational 1-2 at last year’s 10th edition of the MMER with their brigade of high profile Super Taikyu drivers.

While their first car would feature two Malaysians – Fariqe Hairuman and Melvin Moh, along with Japan’s Tatsuya Kataoka; the second car would have Imran Zaharias Shaharom as the lone Malaysia; partnering Nobuteru Taniguchi and Masataka Managida.

The third class of competition would be the Sports Production; featuring the GT4 cars and FIA Group B cars with diesel engine above 1900cc.

Fans can get to see Lotus F1 test driver Fairuz Fauzy in action; partnering his brother and 2004 MMER overall winner Farriz and former German F3 driver Rizal Ashram Ramli in an Aston Martin for Mofaz Racing.