A Good friend of mine came over here from India the other day. During the course of the usual alcohol consuming session, an interesting tidbit popped up. Apparently, land on the outskirts of his city (back in India) costs a hundred thousand Rupees to the Acre. Yes, no typo. A Friggin’ Acre! Apparently, the land is so barren that any form of agriculture is clearly out of question. A shame, isn’t it?

But waitaminute....

You know what it IS good for? Building race tracks. That’s what. It’s one of those things that makes you wonder, “Why didn’t anyone think of this before”? But then again, the commitment factor is missing from us lot, isn’t it? No sir, we’d rather be known for driving business away from our soils for the sake of settling petty political egos that are past their expiration dates by a good decade or two.

Look, we’re not asking for much. A good racetrack is a welcome change from the kabillions of poorly designed and even more poorly used malls that our country is developing a fetish for. The way I see it, the poser crowd has enough hangouts to park their “R1 bodykitted ***insert name of the make here***” and act cool. Let the ones that put the riding first get their due for once. And before you say anything; no, two tracks at one end of the country are NOT good enough. Not much of an analogy, but how’d you like to be fed only once a week and that too, after making a tiring trip for it?

Nah, didn’t think so.

Ok, now that we’ve covered the rant part, let’s look at the situation a bit more logically. What does India have to gain from a properly designed, world class racetrack (even a two wheels only one)? Well, apart from the obvious factor, there are a few more:

- Testing. It could be India’s version of a two wheel-Nurburgring. Manufacturers can put their prototypes through gruelling testing conditions without taking them abroad. With bigger, more powerful motorcycles waiting in the wings, this makes perfect sense. Who knows, India could be used as a low cost, South Asian testing hub by the heavyweights of the industry!

- Once the basic infrastructure has been set up for the track, the service and entertainment industries can step in and take it further. There’s money to be made and nobody likes to turn down money. Plain and simple.

- Motogp: From what I understand, hosting a Motogp round doesn’t cost as much as its Formula One counterpart and provide far more excitement for your buck. Unlike our future Formula One circuit which would exist only once a year, this track wouldn’t be going anywhere. Trust me, the prospect of riding on a Motogp circuit would be impossible to pass on for a vast majority of performance riders. And they’d only be happy to pay a nominal fee to do so. It works in Malaysia. I see no reason why it shouldn’t in India.

OK, so how do we go about this? In a perfect world, a bunch of motorcycle manufacturers would get together, form a non-profit organization and would take care of purchasing the land, setting up the track and so forth. The pros for something on these lines far outweigh the cons. A much more effective form of advertisement than pouring the green stuff down bollywood-lane, if you ask me.

I would also love to see an array of superbikes ready-to-race at the track. Hiring should be limited to members only, (who should be charged a reasonable amount for it) so that every other knobblehead out there wouldn’t turn up and drop them exotica at the first bend. Of course, riding classes conducted by veterans goes without saying. Hell, if i am to go one step further, I’d like to see the global giants who sell superbikes in India (or would start to do so shortly) conduct mandatory training for their customers down here.


A boy can only dream, right?

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