Aishwarya Pissay and Ashish Raorane finish Baja do Pinhal in Portugal
TVS Racing’s Aishwarya Pissay, finished third on the podium in the women’s category of the Baja do Pinhal in Portugal on Sunday. Privateer Ashish Raorane finished 27th overall in the men’s category. This was the second round of the FIM Bajas World Cup and it concluded after the riders completed a grueling course of 364.69km over two days.
TVS Racing – Aishwarya Pissay finishes inspite of injury
Aishwarya finished 29th overall in the two-wheeler class. She was placed third and fourth in the women and junior categories, respectively, but not before suffering a painful injury. She suffered from a nerve-pull on her right hand on Saturday and it cost her lot of time. However, she survived the long Special Stage of 191.27km. The podium finish earned her 15 points which took her World Cup tally to 40, following the 25 she received in the first round in Dubai, earlier this month.
Raorane on the other hand suffered a small crash on the penultimate day due to poor visibility during overtaking a vehicle. The few bruises however, didn’t hamper his progress in the tough rally stages.
On her enduring performance at the Baja do Pinhal, Aishwarya Pissay quoted “I am extremely thrilled to have completed this rally and collect points for the Baja World Cup. The rally was quite challenging with lots of enduro sections, but I managed to avoid any crashes. With the nerve strain on my hand, I couldn’t push up my speeds and that affected my overall performance. I will continue to train and learn from this experience to be fully prepared for the Baja Aragon, the third round of the World Cup, in July 2019. I had problems using the throttle and because of that, I could not have the pace that I wanted. Otherwise, it was a good day of riding for me as I managed to finish the stage without any crashes.”
The third round of the FIM Bajas World Cup will be held in Aragon, Spain and it’s quite a hopeful journey for Aishwarya and Ashish given the experiences and the learning they have had in Dubai and Portugal. Pissay is sponsored by TVS Racing, Mountain Dew, Big Rock Dirtpark (Bengaluru) and Scott Motorsports.
