The First Sunday

The two-wheeler national racing championship kicks off along side the one make series

TTHE BOYS ARE BACK ON two wheels for the start of the 2016 road racing season. Racers for the one-make championships as well as the open classes all began their season in style with the addition of the two all-female series, one from TVS and the other Honda, to make it a total of 16 races over the course of the weekend.

Manufacturers such as TVS, Suzuki and Honda had their own one-make series, the latter two having two classes each, with the track derived versions of their road-legal bikes. TVS’s one-make racer was their all-new Apache RTR 200 4V, while Suzuki upgraded their 2015 Gixxer SF 150 Cup bike (read more about the experience in the following pages). The Gixxer bike was used for the Novice and Senior class and will also be used for the Red Bull “Road To Rookies Cup” programme beginning at the next round in Chennai. Honda provided novice riders with the CBR 150R and the seniors its elder sibling, the CBR 250R for their one-make series.

Honda’s CBR 150Rs were also used for their all-female series while TVS made use of the Apache 160s for the Alisha Abdullah Training Academy (AATA). Both these series run parallel to the weekend’s championships, though they have no championship structure as of yet.

The national championship fielded three classes viz. stock (previously known as Group-D), pro-stock (Group-C) and the premier class super sport (Group-B); all three classes with engine capacity restricted to 165cc.

TVS Racing

Chennai-lad Kannan S was the fastest man out on the Apache 200s, as he was setting lap times nearly a second and a half faster than the nearest competition in practice as well as in qualifying. He led from pole-to-flag in both races of the weekend, with the winning margin in both races being over 23 seconds.

Arvind Ganesh was the best amongst the rest in both races of the championship. He too had a commanding gap over Rahil Peerzade in the first race but had to fight with G A Sunil and Rahil in the second race for the second spot on the podium. Rahil was pipped to the line by Sunil in race two and they were separated by a gap of just 0.022 seconds.

In the AATA support race, Bangalore’s Haritha R took pole from Salem’s Rajeshwari S R with Goan Olesya V Dias completing the front row. Both Rajeshwari and Olesya failed to start the race due to technical problems and Priyanka Rao and Ramya S took their positions on the grid.

In the five-lap race, Haritha managed to emerge on top after battling with Priyanka for the better part of the race. Priyanka struggled in the latter stages and finished one second behind. Mumbai’s Renuka Gajendran, who started fourth, slipstreamed past Ramya at the finish line and the duo were just 0.18 seconds apart. Mumbai’s Pratheeksha Das managed to find her way past four riders to finish fifth.

Suzuki

The novice category of the Gixxer Cup saw 39 applicants and hence qualifying was conducted in two separate batches with the fastest twenty being allowed to race. 24 riders applied for the Open category.

13-year old Sri Lankan, Aaron Gunawardena,

took the paddock by surprise as he took pole with a lap time just shy of the open class pole position lap. The front row was completed by Joseph Mathew and Anthony Peter. Aaron translated his stunning qualifying performance in both races of the day by converting them both into victories.

Joseph couldn’t stick with the teenager in the first race but they enjoyed a healthy duel in the second. Amarnath Rajan was a distant third in both races.

Amongst the senior riders in the open class, B Rajnikanth from Chennai set the fastest time, ahead of Meka Vidhuraj and Prabhu V. Rajnikanth got a great start for the race and set lap-times nearly a second faster than the others. He finished 11.7 seconds ahead of second place Vivek Mani who had qualified 13th. Prabhu completed the podium as Kamlesh Thakur and M Sudhakar rounded off the top five.

Honda

The biggest racing manufacturer in the paddock had three series running with five races in all. The Hondas had been upgraded over the break with the addition of a new exhaust system for both the 150R as well as the 250R. Another major upgrade came in the form of tyres from MRF’s racing division, with the new Zappers designed to provide more grip with a wider tyre profile.

In the Honda ladies’ category, Pune’s Pooja Dabhi clinched pole position from Aishwarya P M and Shruthi. Pooja, having raced previously as well in the earlier 2015 season finale with Honda, had a fair bit of knowledge about the bike and its characteristics. She won the five lap race with Shruthi hot on her heels. Ryhana Bee completed the podium.

The Honda CBR 150R Novice class saw Anish Shetty from Hubli take pole from Mahesh Murali and Abhay Prashan. Anish was 0.7 seconds quicker than the rest of the field. Anish ran away with victory in the first race with a margin of 6.7 seconds from Mahesh. Shreyas Shankar Sannake took the final step of the podium. Shankar Guru and Abhay finished behind the trio.

Anish put in yet another stellar performance in the second race to gain the maximum points for the championship. Shreyas was a distant second with Shane Thompson a further two seconds behind. Piyush Ranjan and Abhay rounded off the top five.

The competition in the Honda CBR 250R class was closely fought with the top three qualifying within half a second of each other. Mathana Kumar of Ten10 racing took the lead with Abhishek Vasudev of Rockstar Racing qualifying only a tenth of a second behind. The front row was completed by Mathana’s teammate Rajiv. Mathana was able to run away with the lead in the first race. Once he had built a safety net for himself, he controlled the pace from the front and was able to win with ease. Rajiv made it 1-2 for Ten10 Racing as Kishore V S of Apex Racing finished third.

The second race of the CBR 250R was the highlight of the entire weekend as the top three crossed the finish line separated by just 0.066 seconds. Abhishek came out on top in the battle for the win while Rajiv managed to out-drag his teammate Mathana. Kishore wasn’t far off though as he finished 0.3 seconds behind Abhishek.