Fuel For Blood

You can take Yuey Tan out of the race, but you can’t take the race out of him.

YUEY TAN IS a child at heart. On Instagram, he posts images of his (rather humorous) toy collection, along with a Photoshopped Christmas greeting card with reindeers pulling the sleigh behind his kart – though it would have been funnier if he replaced the reindeers with the kart instead. It’s like watching a child rush from his bedroom down the stairs on Christmas morning. The difference? Tan can sit still.

You can tell just by looking at his list of achievements – racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, GT3 Cup Challenge and winning the Suzuka Circuit Pro-Am category in May last year – requiring Tan to sit in a race car for hours, speeding on the tracks to clock the fastest lap timings. It’s no easy feat, given that Tan juggles his time between managing The Karting Arena (which he co-founded) at The Grandstand, racing internationally and raising two children with his wife, fellow racer Claire Jedrek.

While others were moving from party to party to welcome 2020, Tan geared up with his team, F1 Auto Cars, and participated in the KF1 12-Hour Endurance Race in Singapore on 28 December. The team of six, made up of Tan, Jedrek, Alex Brown, Andrew Tang, Pavan Ravishankar and Sean Hudspeth, raced against the clock and came out tops.

“I’ve always enjoyed waking up early, but what gets me up these days are my two children, Oli, who’s almost two, and our six-month-old daughter, Charly.

When I founded The Karting Arena in 2015, the goal was to introduce karting at an entry level for everyone to enjoy. Our goal hasn’t changed. There’s still a lot more we can do to spread the word that motorsport is a lot of fun and, more importantly, it is for everyone.

Speed has always been in my blood. Ever since I was young, speed and performance against a clock has always been a lot of fun for me, be it racing cars, karts, mountain bikes, road bikes or even athletics. Over the years, sports has gotten a little more serious with precision, performance, reliability and perseverance being a huge part of the equation.

The aim of racing is to win. Always. Sometimes, things go fantastically and sometimes, very wrong. If I am having a good run, I am thirsty for that to keep happening. And if things aren’t going well, then I’ll want to make things right.

My favourite activity while on holiday with my family is to sit on a beach or by a pool with a cold beer in hand, sun on my face and doing absolutely nothing with my wife and kids, and just enjoying the moment.

If I could buy another car, it would be the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS, even if it isn’t practical given the roll cage and the fact it’s a two-seater and can’t carry my children or luggage.”