HER CAR survived two crashes and lost its front bumper twice.

And when it broke down in the middle of the race track, Puteri Ayu Jasmin, managed to fix it and continued with the race.

Despite the glitches, Puteri's team came in sixth in the Merdeka Millennium Endurance Race (MMER) held in Sepang circuit this August.

The 25-year-old Malaysian race driver was part of the only all-female team, Red Bull Rookies, which took part for the first time in the MMER.

The MMER was introduced in 2000 to mark the turn of the millennium and was part of Malaysia's National Day celebrations.

Last year, Puteri and 22-year-old Leona Chin were picked out of 600 hopefuls to be part of the Red Bull Rookies team during the Red Bull Female Driver Search.

The two female drivers took turns to drive a Honda DC2 for the 12-hour endurance race, competing with 18 other male-driver teams in Class B (production cars below 1,900cc).

Puteri, who is trained in dance and theatre, said: "The male drivers were very aggressive. They would come in very close to me and try to overtake aggressively.

"During the last few hours of the race, one car came so close and tried to overtake me from my right when I was trying to take a left corner at 200km/h.

"I panicked and hit the car on my right. It was hard for me to avoid the crash. My car came to a halt, but the driver whom I hit drove on."

The impact of the crash was so great that it caused sharp pains on Puteri's neck and chest. Her front bumper also came off.

But Puteri was determined to complete the race and carried on driving even without her front bumper.

That was the second time that the front bumper came off during the race, Puteri told The New Paper.

Earlier on in the day, Chin, too had crashed the car and the bumper came off minutes after Puteri took over the wheels.

At one point, the car even broke down in the middle of the race track.

Puteri said: "The race rules did not allow me to seek help from my technical team. I had to fix the car by myself or push it all the way back to the pit stop.

"But I had driven past the pit stop and was about 600 metres away. Yet another racing rule is that we are not allowed to reverse our cars."

Puteri's only option was to try to fix her car by herself.

Ignition problem

She used a walkie-talkie to communicate with her technical crew in the pits and followed their instructions carefully.

Fortunately for her, it was a small ignition problem and she managed to fix it and continued with the race after 10 minutes.

Puteri said: "I am happy with our achievement. It's important to complete a race. This experience has pushed and challenged me to raise my competency as a driver.

"I think we managed to prove that girls too can drive on the race track."

Said Chin: "The training we received before the race has definitely enhanced my driving skills, especially in manoeuvring on the Sepang F1 International Circuit."

Asked what were their most memorable experience besides the crashes was, Puteri replied: "The heat!

"I was sweating like crazy! Sweat all the way down to my panty and sweat through my bra!"

"I am happy with our achievement...This experience has pushed and challenged me to raise my competency as a driver. I think we managed to prove that girls too can drive on the race track."

This article was first published in The New Paper on Oct 31, 2008.