Dirsa Deandaru

My name is Dirsa Deandaru Said. I’m 16 years old. I live in Pondok Indah, South Jakarta. I’m a student at SMA Lab School Kebayoran. I have an older sister, her name is Demira Kania Sasdira. She is 17 years old. She is currently studying Law in Universitas Indonesia. She likes reading, writing a novel, and those kinds of stuff. Both my parents are lawyers. They have their own Law Firm. I in the other hand, have a slightly different hobby. Rather than focusing studying about law, I love racing.

I got interested in racing in 2007. My parents took me to Sentul race track to watch a go-kart race. And then I saw some of my school friends from Al-Izhar. They were about 5 years older than me. I saw them racing that day, and then I got interested in racing karts. So after that day, I began practicing go-karts at some go-kart renting places. I practiced diligently and after a few months, my parents bought me my own go-kart. Every Sunday I went to Sentul Karting Race Track to practice. Then I competed in the National Karting Championship for the first time. The championship was held for about 6 rounds each year. I only participated in 1 round that was held in Sentul. I got so many experiences from it. Then in 2008 I got recruited in Djakarta Theater Racing Team.

My team gave me a new competitive race kart. It felt a lot better and faster than my old kart. After practicing hard and adapting to my new kart, I went to compete in the National Karting Championship full round. I won 1^st place in every race and finally got the tittle as the 2008 National Champion. In the following year I didn’t participate much in the national championship because I had to focus studying for my primary school national exams. I only raced 2 rounds for the national championship but still I managed to finish the season in 3^rd place in the national point standings. But in same year I also got invited to compete in the 2009 Red White Sangari Invitational Kart Prix that was held in Sepang, Malaysia. It was World Karting Grand Prix. So in 2009 I went to Sepang, Malaysia to race go-karts outside Indonesia for my first time and I’m representing Indonesia in that event. There were more than 400 racers that competed in that grand prix. In my class there were about 40 racers from all around the world. I started the race from 18^th position. The European and Brazilian drivers are starting from the front row. It was very rainy that time so it was a wet race. The track was very slippery. There were so many crashes during the race and in the end I ended up finishing in 20^th position. I was disappointed at first because I didn’t win the race but then I got over it because I realized that not all racers got an opportunity to race in that grand prix because it was an invitational grand prix so only the best racers got invited to that race and I was able to represent my country that time. In 2011 I moved up to higher and much faster class called the Junior Rotax Class. It uses a Rotax 125cc engine that can go up to 140 km/hour. I got so many hard times trying to adapt to the speed. Then I participated in the Asian Karting Open Championship (AKOC) that was held in Sentul. It was my first time racing in the Junior Rotax Class. In the end I managed to take 3^rd place in my first ever Junior Rotax race in an international karting championship.

2012 was a very disappointing year in my racing career because I had to stop racing to prepare for my junior high school national exams and. I didn’t race at all that year. I only studied hard at school and home. But in the end it was all worth the risk because I got a great score and also got accepted in SMA Lab School Kebayoran.

In 2013 I moved up to an even higher level of racing. I began racing cars. First time I practiced racing cars, I used my cousin’s race car. It was a Subaru WRX STI. Then my parents allowed me to build my own race car. My first race car was a Daihatsu Charade. I swapped the engine with a much faster one, lighten it, changed its wheels, and many other things to make it a compatible race car. I used my Daihatsu Charade to race for the first time in the Indonesian Series Of Motorsport (ISOM) in Sentul. It was my first ever racing cars and I finished in 4^th place. The next race I was much more ready. My car was faster and more stable than before. I managed to take 3^rd place in my second car racing career.  Then my parents bought me a new racing car. It was a Honda Accord with a turbo engine in it. But then, yet again I had to stop racing until now because I have to study hard to get great scores each semester so that I can get the SNMPTN, a ticket to get to University without going through registration tests.

Even though I’m not racing now, I will still be preparing to get back to racing someday. I will still be taking care of my race cars every day so that if one day I got an opportunity to race again, I’ll be ready. I won’t quit racing that easily because racing is already a part of my life.