Notes:
Nam Kee Yong (Yong Nam Kee in Chinese) was from a wealthy Singaporean family which owned the Woh Hup building contractor company. He was born sometime before 1935, when Singapore was part of the Straits Settlements, a British colony that included Penang and Malacca, both of which are today parts of Malaysia. Because of his place of birth and heritage, Yong is called Singaporean.

In the late 1940s or early 1950s Nam Kee's father was shot in Singapore and he was sent to Penang to study at the Chung Ling High School. It was there that, riding a red Triumph Speed Twin S 5050 motorcycle, that he met Rodney Seow, who would become his racing team mate years later.

Affectionally called "Fatso", Yong returned to Singapore in 1952 and soon took up on motorcycle races in hillclimbs and sprints. Sometime after 1953 he began racing cars, competing in his first events with an Austin 100 special. In the early 1960s he would meet Seow - who returned to Singapore after studying in the United Kingdom - and the two had a successful association racing Volvos in touring car races. He would later upgrade to a Jaguar E-Type, winning several events with it, including the 1962 Malaysian Grand Prix.

In 1963 Yong drove a specially imported Jaguar D-Type from Cycle & Carriage, Co. in Singapore. That car, chassis number XKD510, had a long racing history, having been campaigned since 1956; it was at the wheel of this very machine that Tony Dennis would lose his life in 02 April of that year, when it rolled and caught fire at the end of the Lavant Straight during a sportscar race in Goodwood. The car was rebuilt around a new monocoque and, after several changes of ownership, finally made its way to Southeastern Asia.

Yong's first and only sortie with the dark green D-Type would be the Johore Grand Prix on 02 September of that year. Yong was one of the candidates to the final win and in fact alternated in the lead with Albert Poon several times. Sadly though, he had an accident at the seafront straight, in which the car broke in two and the front half went over a cliff to the beach below, killing him. Albert Poon ultimately won the race. Two weeks later the Federation of Malaya - in which Johor Bahru, the site of the race, was located -, would become Malaysia, a country uniting Malaya, Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore. Singapore would secede from Malaysia in April of 1965.

The 1963 Johore Grand Prix was organized in a street course in the town of Johor Bahru, Federation of Malaya, along the seafront, adjacent to the Straits of Johore separating Singapore and Johor Bahru. Ten years before another fatality occurred at the same circuit, when the Malaysian rider Osman Abbas crashed his Norton 350 cm³ during practice for the 1953 motorcycle Johore Grand Prix.

Note: Being born in Singapore when it was a part of a British colony within the Commonwealth, Nam Kee Yong was a British citizen and then automatically became citizen of Singapore when the small republic unilaterally declared independecy from the British Empire in August 1963. On 16 September 1963 Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia, which it left two years later to become an independent republic. As Nam Kee Yong, died on 02 September 1963, in the brief period of time after Singapore split from the British Empire and before it joined Malaysia, this driver is regarded as a Singapore citizen at the time of his death.

Biography prepared with the kind help of Mr. Rodney Seow.

Yong Nam Kee in the #78 Triumph Tiger and in a modified Austin Healey 100.
These pictures were taken at the Gap Hillclimb Singapore, between 1953 and 1959.
Photos courtesy of Rodney Seow.

• Website XK Evocation, page http://www.xkevocation.com/xkd510-512.html .
• Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Singapore GP", page 1, posting by David MacKinney, message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=1482033#post1482033 .
• Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Singapore GP", page 2, posting by "sss11", message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=2296364#post2296364 .
• Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Speed's Ultimate Price: The Toll", page 17, posting by John Medley, message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=1069055#post1069055 .
• Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Speed's Ultimate Price: The Toll,page 36, posting by David MacKinney, message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=1598046#post1598046 .
• Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Speed's Ultimate Price: The Toll,page 36, posting by David MacKinney, message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=1598223#post1598223 .
• Website Atlas F1, bulletin boards, "The Nostalgia Forum", thread "Speed's Ultimate Price: The Toll,page 36, posting by "Muzza", message http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?postid=1598499#post1598499 .
• Website Regit.com, page http://www.regit.com/malaysia/history/history.htm .
• Website Lonely Planet World Guide, page http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/south_east_asia/malaysia/history.htm .
• Website AllRefer, article "Singapore as Part of Malaysia", page http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/singapore/singapore33.html .
• Website Headlines, Lifelines, article "Singapore before the storm", page http://ourstory.asia1.com.sg/war/war.html .
• Website Country Data, article "Singapore between the World Wars, 1919-1941", page http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-11790.html .
• E-mail by Rick Kelly, dated 10 February 2004.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 10 March 2006.
• E-mail by Yu-Im Loh, dated 16 March 2006.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 20 March 2006.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 21 March 2006.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 17 April 2007.
• E-mail by "Indian", dated 15 July 2008.
• E-mail by "Indian", dated 20 July 2008.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 14 August 2008.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 19 June 2009.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 01 November 2009.
• E-mail by Rodney Seow, dated 10 November 2009.