Riders on the storm
The second round of the 2021 INMRC was underway and things got spicy over the three days of racing
win. The battle continued between Jagan and Rajiv in the second race as they swapped the lead. But with two laps remaining, Deepak Ravikumar got the best of the situation and the lead of the race as Rajiv and Senthil tangled which took out the former, leaving Jagan to snatch P2 while Senthil completed the podium. The result still left Jagan in the championship lead with a tally of 93 points, well clear of Ravikumar with 67 points and Rajiv Sethu with 56 points.
In the Novice Stock 165cc class, Anfal Akdhar had to fight hard for his victory after having to battle it out with pole sitter Alwin Sundar. Sundar, who had won both the races in the first round, fell out of contention due to an issue with his bike. With Sundar out of the picture, Anfal and Allwin Xavier fought until the finish line where Anfal managed to keep his front tyre ahead to take the victory. In the second race though, Xavier was able to take his revenge for the first race and came home victorious by just three hundredths of a second over Akdhar.
The one make championship organised by MMSC also witnessed dominating rides. In the Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup, Kavin Quintal (NSF 250R) and Kevin Kannan (Honda Hornet 2.0) posted their third victory apiece. Jinendra Kiran Sangave, the 12-year-old from Kolhapur (TVS Rookie) and Chennai’s Rakshitha Dave (TVS Girls) maintained their unbeaten run in their respective categories. With all that said, we conclude the second round of the MMSC FMSCI national motorcycle racing championship with the third round scheduled for October 8 at MMRT, Chennai. ⌧
IT WAS A CLOSE FIRST RACE BETWEEN RIVALS JAGAN AND RAJIV
ARJUN MAINI LEARNT HARD lessons over the bitter weekends at Assen and the Hockenheimring in DTM. In both rounds, he showed competitive pace but due to incidents, he failed to convert it to points during the race.
At Assen’s first race, Maini was within a tenth of a second from the pole sitters. But a bad rolling start caused Maini to crash with the cars ahead. Due to this, he had to retire from the race and with a sudden pace drop off in the second race, Maini came out of Assen with no points in the bag.
At Hockenheimring, Maini topped the timesheets in the second practice session. However, he went in too aggressively on the opening lap, collided with Lucas Auer and retired from the race. In the second race, Maini qualified P3 only to be sent back to P8 with a five-place grid penalty. He was also given a five-second time penalty for a pit-stop infringement and finished P8, scoring just five points from the weekend.
Arjun holds P14 in the drivers championship with 17 points as DTM heads to Norisring for the final race on the calendar on October 8. ⌧