Hari and Jagan emerge victorious
The MMSC 2W NRC heats up with three new support races
AAFTER THE SECOND round of the series had to be postponed due to the resurfacing of the MMRT track, the motorcycle racing championship returns after a break of six weeks. The round marked the beginning of the Suzuki Red Bull Road To Rookies Cup programme which ran as a part of the Suzuki Gixxer Novice class. A new Group B class was also formed for 300-400cc engine capacity motorcycles as well as two superbike classes – a 600cc and a litre-class, all three acting as support races for the series.
Suzuki
Seven racers qualified to be a part of the Road to Rookies Cup programme, which fields riders between the ages of 13 and 17. The races for the programme would be clubbed with the Gixxer Novice category.
Young Sri Lankan and favourite, Aaron Gunawardena crashed out on the second lap of the first race while racing the opening sequence of corners. This meant Ahmedabad’s Sachin Choudhary could go on to take victory in the first rookies segment race from Chennai’s S Varoon and A S Alexander. Aaron didn’t make any errors in the following two races to win both of them with ease as Varoon and Alexander finished on the podium in both races.
Chennai’s Amarnath Rajan and Coimbatore’s Antony Peter battled for the win in all three races of the weekend. Rajan bagged maximum points from all races with hundredths separating him and Peter at the finish line. Joseph Mathew, Peddu Sri Harsha and C Raj Kumar finished third in the respective races.
In the Open class, Meka Vidhuraj from Nuzvid won from Chennai’s R Rajnikanth and Coimbatore’s Vishwadev Muraleedharan in the first race. Rajnikanth went one better in the next race with Kanpur’s Vivian Gladwin and Muraleedharan completing the podium as Vidhuraj had an incident at the start of the second lap. Gladwin triumphed in the final race of the weekend with Vidhuraj second and Muraleedharan completing a hat-trick of third spot.
TVS
Goan rider Olesya V Dias was able to shake-off her misfortunes from Coimbatore to reign supreme in the AATA Ladies support race. Coimbatore’s Aishwarya and Rajeshwari could make no impression on Olesya with the duo settling for the remaining spots on the podium.
Chennai’s Yuvaraj S won both the Apache RTR 180 Novice races from pole position. Yashas R L and Kamran Alam were a few seconds off at the finish line in the first race. Kamran climbed a step higher on the podium for the next race with Hari Prasath R filling in the final spot.
Chennai’s Kannan K won both of his Apache RTR 200 Open races with ease as he made most of his pole position advantage. S Vivek Pillai could make no impression on Kannan in either race and had to settle for second. Third place finisher, Aravind Ganesh, was ahead of the rest of the pack in the two races of the weekend.
Honda
Soundari A managed to get the better of pole-sitter Pooja Dabhi in the Honda CBR 150R Ladies race. Pooja led for the majority of the 4 lap race only to lose it in the final section. Aishwarya P was third.
The CBR 150R Novice class saw three close race finishes with almost five riders vying for the win in each. Piyush Ranjan edged out Shreyas Shankar Sannake and Anish D Shetty to win the first race of the weekend. Anish, Soorya P M and Mahesh Murali M managed to stay ahead in the leading group to complete the top three spots in races two and three.
Mathana Kumar won both of his CBR 250R Open class races in a convincing manner. He had a margin of five seconds on Rajiv S in the first race and was seven seconds ahead of Abhishek V in the second one. S Sivanesan finished third in the first race while Rajiv was third in the following one.
National Championship
Performance Racing’s Antony Peter picked up the first victory of the round in the Stock class on his Yamaha R15. Sparks Racing’s Joseph Mathew achieved a Yamaha 1-2 while Piyush Ranjan on a Honda CBR 150R of Pro Lap Racing finished third. Amarnath Rajan won the second Stock race for the RACR team with Speed Up Racing’s Soorya P M second and Sparks Racing’s Peddu Sri Harsha third.
Ten10 Racing did a double 1-2 over the weekend in the Pro-Stock category with their CBR 150R, with Hari Krishnan winning from teammate Rajiv Sethu on both occasions. RACR’s D Dinesh Kumar stopped Mithun Kumar to finish third in the first race, thwarting Ten10 Racing’s hopes for a 1-2-3. Dinesh was third again in the next race but had a fairly lonely outing this time round.
Team TVS Racing made a clean sweep of all the trophies at the podium in the first race of the Super Sport class with championship leader K Jagan winning from S Kannan and K Y Ahmed. The following race saw RACR sealing a 1-2 with team owner Rajini Krishnan winning from R Deepak. Jagan was just a tenth away from second but crucially, was able to maintain his composure ahead of Ten10 racing’s Sarath Kumar, still nursing his left knee.
Racing will resume in the first weekend of September at the MMRT circuit for the penultimate round.