MOTORSPORT

JK NRC season opener, first Indian rally of the year, round two of MMSC bike races and the Backwaters Rally

TTHE JK TYRE NATIONAL Racing Championship finally began at the Kari Motor Speedway with the Euro JK 16 series, the Indian Touring Car class re-added to the championship, and an intermediate formula racing class called the LGB F4 being run on the weekend.

Euro JK 16

Key upgrades have been brought to the Formula BMW car with a more powerful 1.2-litre BMW engine, a paddle shifting transmission and a stronger monococque chassis construction helping the new car achieve speeds in the region of 260kmph. But since we were at the tight Kari track, they were limited to around 240kmph.

Saturday’s quota of racing saw Kush Maini ( above) romping away with victory in the first race with minimal fuss. Akhil Rabindra and Anindith Reddy made the most of the DNFs ahead of them to finish on the podium. Race two had to be red-flagged at the end of the opening lap itself as Ricky Donison, Krishnaraaj and Akhil made contact, flipping Akhil’s car in the process, Everybody escaped from the collision unscathed. Donison did win the restarted race but was found to have jump started and thereby handed a ten-second time penalty. Hence Krishnaraaj Mahadik won the race from Anindith and Akash Gowda.

Sunday however was all about Nayan Chatterjee. Chatterjee won both races on Sunday, not outright though in the first one. Donison did cross the finish line first in race three but was again found to have made a jump start and hence lost the win to Chatterjee and even second to Krishnaraaj.

In the final race of the round, Chatterjee and Krishnaraaj were miles ahead from the rest of the field. While Chatterjee did finish first at the end of the 15-lap race, it was Kush Maini who was handed second position after Krishnaraaj was found to have made a jump start.

LGB F4

It was Vishnu Prasad versus Ashwin Sunder all weekend. Vishnu got a good start in the first race to lead in to the first corner. With Ashwin right on his tail, the duo sped off leaving Sudarshana Rao behind. In an audacious move, Ashwin dove down the inside of Vishnu at the first corner but they touched and Ashwin spun allowing Sudarshana to take second place.

The second race was right down to the wire as both Vishnu and Ashwin were trading fastest laps. Ashwin won race two by a margin of 0.088 seconds as he made his move right at the very end. Sudarshana was the best of the rest as he finished third.

There were crashes galore in the final race of the class, as Vishnu and Ashwin failed to impress and Sudarshana had a massive shunt forcing him to retire. This helped Rohit Khanna pick up his first victory of the season with Saran Vikram Tmars second and Avalanche Racing’s Diljith T S third.

Indian Touring Cars

A dominant team and a superior car helped Ashish Ramaswamy ( below) top all sessions and win both races of the weekend. Rajaram C did give Ashish a tough time in the first race but to no avail. Vidyaprakash Damodaran was third. Ashish went on to win the following race on Sunday with ease from Vidyaprakash and Rajkumar G D.

The action will return to the Kari Speedway in Coimbatore again in September.