The MRF Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship drew to a close, with Deepak Ravikumar, Sarath Kumar, Venkatesan and Ryhana Bee winning national titles in their respective classes. Titles for the National Championship were contested in the Pro Stock 165cc, Pro Stock 201-300cc, Novice Stock 165cc and the girls category as well. The final rounds of the Honda and TVS one make series also took place this weekend.
Starting with the Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup that runs in two categories, CBR 150R and the all-new for this season NSF 250R that runs on Moto-3 spec motorcycles. In the NSF 250R category MD Mikhail took the win in all three races, acing the last race with a 25-second lead and also winning the championship as he has bagged 7 wins from 8 starts. The CBR 150R races were all dominated by Lal Nunsanga through the weekend and with a brilliant performance through the season he grabbed his maiden title in the one-make series.
TVS runs a one-make series as well with multiple categories: RTR 200 Girls, RTR 200 Novice, RR 310 Open, RTR 200 Media. Nivetha Jessica had a good performance over the season and a strong second place in the race saw her win the TVS RTR 200 Girls title. Venkatesan I won the first race and finished fourth in race 2, however he had clocked up enough points over the season to bag the title. In the RR Cup, Aravind Ganesh won the title thanks to great performance in previous races getting away with second place and only a lowly sixth in the final race. In the Young Media races Jehan Darukhanawala took the championship with a brilliant performance in qualifying as well as a very consistent race this weekend and throughout the season. Our very own Alameen Merchant finished a fantastic fourth and might have taken another place had there been a lap more, you can read his blog about his experience here.
National Championships are run in the following classes: Girls Stock 165cc, Novice Stock 165cc, Pro-Stock 165cc, Pro-Stock 201-300cc and Pro-Stock 301-400cc.
Ryhana Bee from Sparks Racing won the championship in the Girls Stock 165cc class after playing the long game and finishing a safe 3rd securing enough points for the championship title.Venkatesan I of Team Moto Maniacz (Winner of TVS RTR 200 Novice as well) took home the Novice-Stock 165 championship with a super close battle in Race 2 with just 0.092 second deciding the win between him and Manoj Y who finished second.
Sarath Kumar took the crown for team Idemitsu Honda Ten10 Racing in the fantastically close battle between the two titans, Honda and TVS. It was Sarath’s first championship title in nine years so he was decidedly ecstatic with the win and truly deserved the title.
Titles for team Honda didn’t stop there as Anish Shetty got home the Pro Stock 201-300cc title on Saturday itself and proved he was deserving with wins in both races over the weekend.
In true Hollywood fashion TVS racing got the title in the top flight Pro-Stock 301-400cc class with their champion rider Deepak Ravikumar bagging a strong win over the weekend after a fourth place finish in the first race.
The weekend marked the end of the Indian National Motorcycle Championships, we are approaching the end of most of our National track based championships as the racing season draws to a close. We got some great action throughout the season and saw some brilliant new talent emerge through the ranks.