Crucial round for title aspirants

The Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship enters its crucial phase when the focus shifts from just performance to scoring points as the fourth and penultimate round gets underway at the Madras Motor Racing Track circuit in Chennai on Friday.

The final rounds of the Indian National Drag Racing Championship 2018 for both four and two wheelers will also be held post- lunch on Saturday and Sunday. The Yamaha MMSC OneMake Championship in the Novice category has attracted about 60 entries with 40 being the cut- off to make the multiple qualifying rounds which, in turn, decide the final 20 riders for the two points- scoring races.

If the competition among Novice ( Stock 165cc) riders is razor- sharp with just three points separating Sparks Racing team mates Karthik Mateti ( 61) and Aditya Rao Immaneni ( 58), so is the case in the Super Sport Indian 165cc where TVS Racing and Honda Racing riders are locked in a bitter fight for supremacy. TVS riders are sitting pretty at the top with defending champion Jagan Kumar ( 112 points) and KY Ahamed ( 91) comfortably ahead of their Honda rivals Rajiv Sethu ( 70), Sarath Kumar ( 70) and Mathana Kumar ( 67). Also, TVS have another of their rider, Deepak Ravikumar ( 74), as a buffer to the top two.

The Pro- Stock 301- 400cc category is developing into a straight fight between Gusto Racing team- mates Amarnath Menon ( 108) from Kozhikode and Hyderabad’s Satyanarayana Raju ( 101) while in the Pro- Stock 165cc class, Bengaluru- based techie Anish Shetty ( 101) has a healthy lead over local challenger Kevin Kannan ( 85) of Rockers Racing.