So my first full year of racing finally comes to an end. I won race 2 of round 4 that was held on friday 31st Oct and on saturday i quailfied on pole for Round 5 with an overall best time of 1:14.798.
In race 2 of round 4 that took place on friday i was luckily able to break away from the pack and put in some fast laps to grab first 1st place from Sudhakar of Anya Racing who finished 5 seconds behind me.
During the remaining 2 races however, i wasn't so fortunate and it did get quite frustrating. My competitors who were running race ECU's had more power, they rode defensively and though slower into the corners they were still able to pull out fast on the exits. In my case unfortunately, once slowed down my bike simply didnt have the grunt to match the competition out of the corner. In Race 1 of Round5 on Saturday i was in 2nd place overall midway through the race with T.K.Vishwanath of Anya Racing just ahead of me. On the 3rd lap, Harry of TVS Racing who was just behind me tried to make a move on both myself and Vishwanath into C2. Unfortunately Harry couldnt get past Vishwa and ran into him at the apex resulting in Vishwa crashing out in front of me, this lost me a lot of time as i almost came to a stop trying to avoid a collision with the fallen rider. At that moment Sriskandarajah, Sudhakar and Rajini passed me and for the remaning 2 laps both Rajini and I tried in vain to pass the Anya riders. Anya team expert class rider, Sriskandarajah did a good job of protecting his intermediate team mate Sudhakar by blocking the rest of the group and overall in the end their team strategy and machinery was just too hard to beat.
Race 2 that was held on Sunday started with both Shyam Shankar of TVS racing and myself tied for 1st place in the championship with 112 points each. Sudhakar of Anya Racing was 1 point behind at 111. The race was closer this time, Sudhakar got off to a better start and rode defensively holding me back during the first lap. Sriskandarajah got past me as well and from then on there was no getting past the duo. At one point Sudhakar lost the rear in the middle of C4 and i was about to get past, however Sri reacted quickly and closed the door on me allowing Sudhakar to regain his position. From then on I kept hard on their tail looking for an opening which never came. The finish was close with me claiming 2nd in my class 0.314 seconds behind Sudhakar.
Overall I finished 2nd in both races for round 5 and 2nd in the championship for my class. This was the most closely contested class in the entire championship this year. I lost the first place title by 1 point to the yamaha team (anya racing) but beat TVS racing who had to settle for 3rd place 1 point behind me. Points in the end were as follows
Group D 4 stroke 165 cc – Intermediate
Sudhakar Kesavan (Anya Racing) - 126
V.Sameer (Red Rooster Racing) - 125
Shyam Shankar (TVS Racing)- 124
Huge thanks to my team Red Rooster Racing and especially my tuner and friend Senthil for all his hard work and support without which none of the results we achieved would have been possible. The two of us worked our butts off this year, working with a very limited budget and limited resources, we took on the mighty factory supported teams and beat them at their own game. I would like to thank my friends as well who supported me along the way, helping out in various ways, couldn't have done it without you guys. It has been a truly rewarding experience, I've personaly learnt a lot this year and we will be back stronger next year!
Pic from the start of the race:-
IMG_1093 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Qualifying:-
indmotorsport.com
Race results:-
BikesZone - Motorcycles, racing, touring, reviews, cycling, India, Bangalore - Race results from the last round of the INRRC championship
Championship results:
http://www.indmotorsport.com/2008/ot...ions.2008.html
Qualifying and Race result sheets from my races below
Round 4 Race 2:-
Round 5 Qualifying:-
Round 5 Race 1:-
Round 5 Race 2 (the championship decider, lost it by 0.314 seconds....so close yet so far):-
