The ninth edition of the MME this year is likely to witness the grand entry of at least three Aston Martin machines, which should severely test the power of Honda Malaysia Racing Team that had ruled Class A for unmodified production cars for the past five races.

News on the entry of the 4.7-liter V8-engined Aston Martin Vantage for the 2008 race had generated a lot of interest and even concern to a certain extend within the racing fraternity as some of regular competitors approached event organizers, Sepang International Circuit (SIC) on the status of their new rivals.

“As a general rule, the Aston Martin Asia Cup race car would be competing in the open class. But, if it is a fully production car, then it would be competing in Class A. But, these things can only be determined after the scrutineering exercise,” says SIC Press Officer Azhar Ghazali.

“There’re also talks of the Ferrari Modena 360s entering Class A as well. But, as of to-date, we have not received any entries of the Ferraris nor the Aston Martins for the MME. So, we’ll just have to wait and see,” he added.

So far, according to Azhar, SIC had official received some 30 entries; but many of the entries have yet to confirm their cars and their complete drivers’ list. Submission of entries of this year’s MME would close on August 16.

Aston Martin Cup Asia series director Ian Ross Geekie had confirmed his entry in this year’s race with his Vantage N24 race car and also told that there would be two more Aston Martin cars joining his team at this year’s race, which he opted not to disclose.

“You will know them in time,” Ian said when asked about the participation of the Aston Martin Asia Cup drivers for the 2008 Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race.

Since the 2003 edition, the Class A category for production cars above 1900cc had been dominated by Honda Malaysia Racing teams. The partnership of Eddie Lew, Farriz Fauzy and Super GT driver Hiroki Katoh even took the overall honours in 2004 as well; upstaging their rivals with modified race machines in the open class.

Unlike previously, Honda Malaysia, however, is scheduled field a full-fledged Malaysian team this year; running two Honda Civic Type R 2.0 race cars that would be prepared by the team from the Honda Malaysia plant in Melaka.

As usual, officials of Honda Malaysia had opted to remain tight-lipped over their preparations and the drivers-up, which should include Malaysia’s top saloon car driver Eddie Lew, Rueben Wong, Fahrizal Hassan and former A1GP driver Aaron Lim.

“Based on past experience, Honda Malaysia usually makes their announcement during race week; so I guess we need to wait until then for the full details,” Azhar added.

First held at the turn of the millennium in 2000, the ninth edition of the MME would introduce new regulations including the quota of cars qualifying for the race according to their classes.

While the open class and Class A would have a maximum of 20 entries each, the quota for Class B for cars between 1601cc and 1900cc and Class C for cars below 1600cc had been reduced from 26 entries to 19 and 18 cars respectively.

“The qualifying session for the race would be held on August 29 with the race to be flagged off on the following day on August 30 at 11.30am and finishing at 11.30pm,” said Azhar.

The circuit license issued by the Federation of International Automobile (FIA) - world’s governing motorsport body - had set a maximum of only 77 cars for a rolling start at Sepang Circuit in the interest of safety.

The 2008 Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race would also feature two support races – the Hong Kong Classic Car Series and the Petronas Formula Xperience to add further excitement to the prestigious event.

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