TVS Racing’s Jagan chases down Honda Ten10’s Rajiv in the National Championship

The penultimate round of the MRF MMSC National Motorcycle Racing championship drew to a dramatic end with TVS Racing’s Jagan Kumar making up crucial points to championship leader Rajiv Sethu in the Super Sport up to 165cc class. He scored a double victory, while a DNF for Rajiv saw him lose out heavily. More importantly though, Aishwarya Pissay was crowned the national champion in the Girls stock up to 165cc class after her closest competition Kalyani Potekar was disqualified after the Round 4 race. Here is all the action from this round of the national championship, held from September 8 to September 10 at the MMRT in Chennai:

Super Sport Indian up to 165cc
Defending champion and TVS Racing factory rider Jagan Kumar, came in to this weekend fifth in the rider’s championship, trailing Honda Ten10’s Rajiv Sethu by 33 points. He put up a great lap in qualifying, taking pole position while Rajiv was at P2 and KY Ahmed of TVS Racing completed the first row. In the first race, Jagan got off to a good start and traded places with Rajiv for the lead a number of times until Jagan pulled up a small, but sufficient lead to take the win. Rajiv finished second and Kannan Subramaniam of TVS Racing finished third. Jagan started on pole for race 2 as well, and got off to a good start, keeping Rajiv behind him in to C1. Rajiv was hot on his tail, but a highside ended his race and Jagan won comfortably. Mathana Kumar, the only other Honda that could challenge for the podium crashed as well, and so TVS Racing racked up a 1-2-3 finish — crucial to their chances of winning the constructor’s championship this year. Heading in to the final round, Jagan trails Rajiv by a single point and the last two races of the season are bound to be nail-bitingly close.

Pro Stock up to 165cc
Meanwhile, in the Pro stock class, Soorya PM put up the best time followed by his Honda Ten10 Racing teammate Aravind Balakrishnan and Yashas RL in P3. However Aravind B and Aravind Ganesh, both championship contenders crashed out of Race 1. In Race 2, it was Honda Ten10’s Anish Shetty that took the win, his first of the season, followed by Aravind B and Aravind G. At the end of the weekend, Aravind B leads the championship from Aravind G by 21 points.

Super Sport 300-400cc
Deepak Ravikumar of Moto-Rev India clocked the fastest time in qualifying, followed by Apex Racing’s Kishoar VS and Gusto Racing’s Amarnath Menon. Ravikumar was ahead for most of Race 1, which was red flagged and then restarted. He managed to hold on to first and convert it in to a win, ahead of Antony Peter and championship leader Amarnath. Race 2 finished in the same order, with Ravikumar finishing first, Antony second and Amarnath third. 

Girls stock up to 165cc
Local girl Ann Jennifer posted the quickest time in qualifying, followed by Alisha Abdullah and championship leader Aishwarya Pissay in P3. Alisha won the race, with Aishwarya second and Kalyani Potekar in third and they were set to continue their championship fight in to the last round. However, Kalyani was disqualified in the post event scrutiny and that meant Aishwarya was 32 points clear of her in the rider’s championship and hence, clinched the title with one race to spare.

Stock up to 165cc
In the most crowded grid on the track, two heats were conducted to select riders for the final race grid and it was Vyshak Shoban who took pole, followed by championship leader Sri Rahil Pillarishetty and Peddu Sri Harsha in P2 and P3 respectively. In the race, it was Peddu Sri Harsha who finished on top with Sri Rahil Pillarishetty in second and Satyanarayana Raju in third making it a 1-2-3 finish for Sparks racing.

Honda one-make championship
In the Honda one make championship, Rajiv Sethu took pole position in the Open class. However, he could not convert that in to a victory, and placed second in both races. It was Hari Krishnan who took the double win, and while Aravind Balakrishnan placed third in Race 1, Amit Richard Topno placed third in Race 2. In the novice class, it was Aswin Kumar who took pole in Race 1. However in the race, Amala Jerald A took the win followed by Balaji G and Satyanarayana Raju. In race 2, Amala took another victory followed by Senthil Kumar and Aswin.

TVS Racing one-make championship
Sivanesan S took the fastest lap in the Open class of the TVS One Make championship. He scored a double win that weekend, placing first in both races, followed by Arun Muthukrishnan and Anand Kumar who placed second and third respectively in both races as well. In the novice category, Peddu Sri Harsha won the first race with Anup Kumar in second and Romario J in third. In race 2, however, Anup got the better of Sri Harsha and took the win, Sri Harsha finished second and Shankar Guru A finished third.