Photography Mohd. Nasir / The weekend of March 24, 2014 proved to be a successful one for rider Mathana Kumar who recorded two wins
and two podium finishes at the TVS & Honda One Make Championships conducted
by the Madras Motor Sports Club (MMSC) along
with FMSCI at the Buddh International Circuit on March 23, 2014.
Both Honda CBR
250R and TVS Apache RTR 180 categories in the FMSCI-MMSC Indian National
Motorcycle Racing Championship (INMRC) served as the main support races for the
Tata T1 Prima Truck Racing Championship.
The
weekend race featured two races from each category. The TVS Apache RTR 180 had
the Open and Novice class while Honda had the CBR150R Novice class and CBR250R
Open class.
Some of India's top riders including Sarath Kumar, Sumit Lucas
Toppo, A Prabhu, Mathana Kumar and a host of other riders took part in the
weekend races.
For
the first time the race also saw riders hailing from different parts of the
country with riders from Ahmadabad, Chandigrah, Faridabad, Patna, Madurai,
Chennai, Hyderabad all competing. This was the second time that motorcycle
racing took place at the BIC after MMSC hosted a Round of the INMRC in September
2013.
Mathana
Kumar, the young rider from Trichy won both races in the TVS MMSC One Make
Racing Championship 2014 and finished in second place in both races of the
Honda MMSC One Make Racing Championship 2014.
During
the weekend, action started with the Honda CBR 250 race and former Moto 3 rider
Sarath Kumar attaining pole position. He went on to ultimately win the race as
he crossed the chequered flag 4 seconds ahead of Mathana Kumar. Kamlesh Thakur came in 3rd place. He was over
5 seconds behind the 2nd placed man.
In
the CBR-150 Novice category in Race 2, it was a close finish for S Kannan as he
narrowly edged out Malsawm Dawngliana by 0.673 seconds. The final spot on the
podium went to Shreyas Sannake, who finished a further 7 seconds behind.
In
the TVS Apache RTR 180 category race, it was Mathana Kumar who took the first
win of the weekend. He was followed home by B Lalruatshanga and Arvind Ganesh.
The
second race of the Honda CBR-150 provided some thrilling action with E
Saravanan and Malsawm Dangliana almost finishing side-by-side as they crossed
the line. Saravanan won the race by 0.341 seconds. The third place on the
podium went to Vivek Kumar, who was also close to the top two and finished 1
second behind.
Young
rider Sumit Lucas Toppo won Race 2 of the CBR Honda-250 category with a
convincing display. The battle for 2nd was close with Mathana Kumar just
holding off race 1 winner Sarath Kumar in a thrilling battle.
The
final race of the weekend was the TVS Apache RTR 180 again with Mathan Kumar
doing the double with another win. While Mathana won comfortably, the battle
behind was intense with 5 riders fighting for the last two podium spots. Shyam
Shankar finished in 2nd place with B Lalruatshanga finishing in 3rd place.
Bringing
intense excitement and adrenaline to the race, the CBR 250R category was under
Team Championship. CBR 250R performance bikes were leased to teams registered
at FMSCI. These vehicles were modified with imported HRC performance kits for
an better output.
Honda further supported participating teams with Original
Spare parts worth Rs. 10,000 and set of tyres replacement each round. This
year, Honda introduced its CBR 150R Novice category at BIC to promote racing
amongst new riders.