Jagan Kumar of TVS Racing finished third in the premier Pro-Stock 165cc race, but the 15 points were enough to fetch him his 10th National crown with a race to spare in the fifth and final round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship 2021 at the MMRT, here on Friday.
Earlier, Bengaluru-based Anish Damodara Shetty (Race Concepts), astride a KTM 390, shrugged off a hip injury that he suffered after a high-speed crash in the qualifying session a couple of hours earlier, to win a thrilling race in the Pro-Stock 301-400cc category that headlines the championship.
Also hogging the limelight on the day was Thrissur’s Allwin Xavier (Sparks Racing) who won both the races in the Novice (Stock 165cc) category to move to third spot on the championship leaderboard. Alwin Sundar (AS Motorsports), with two second-place finishes today, took a 16-point lead over another Thrissur rider Anfal Akdhar (Rockstar Racing) to head the championship standings in this category with one more race to be run tomorrow (Saturday).
Keeping the title in sight, 33-year old Jagan rode a conservative race and was content to finish third behind winner and team-mate KY Ahamed who broke the Honda hearts by passing race leader Rajiv Sethu (Idemitsu Honda SK69 Racing) entering the start-finish straight on the final lap.
An ecstatic Jagan, 33, said: “The No.10 title was always my goal. In fact, after I won title No.5, I said I would like to double it, but people laughed. Anyway, I am extremely happy to have sealed the championship and it has been a long and difficult journey for me. Today, I did not really push in the race as I wanted to pick up the points I needed for the championship.”
Jagan, who had started the season with a hat-trick of wins, moved to 174 points, well clear of Rajiv Sethu (134), Deepak Ravikumar (128) and Ahamed (124) with just one more race to be run tomorrow (Saturday) and a maximum of 25 points on offer.
Anish Shetty suffered a hit on the right side of the hip after a highspeed high-side crash during the qualifying session, but managed to scramble from a P3 start to the front after a battle with front-running pole-sitter Deepak Ravikumar (TVS Racing). Also in the mix was Rahil Shetty (Gusto Racing). As the six-lap race progressed, Ahamed made two places to tuck in behind Anish Shetty and Rahil as the trio crossed the finish line in that order.
“It was a tough race to win especially after my crash earlier in the day. In the qualifying a couple of hours before the race, I had a high-side crash on the back sweep on just my second hot lap. I must have been doing about 135-140Kmph. I landed on the right side of the hip. Luckily, I didn’t suffer any other injuries, but the team did a fantastic job in getting the bike ready for the race. I had a twitch on the right side and so I couldn’t lean much on the right-hand turns,” said Anish who thus moved within 22 points of leader Rajini Krishnan (RACR Castrol Power1 Ultimate) for whom it was a disastrous outing as he crashed in the second lap and finished without a point in12th.
Provisional results (all 6 laps unless mentioned):
Pro-Stock 301-400cc (Race-1): 1. Anish Damodara Shetty (Race Concepts, Bengaluru) (11mins,19.140secs); 2. Ahmed KY (TVS Racing, Chennai) (11:19.332); 3. Rahil Shetty (Gusto Racing, Hyderabad) (11:19.636).
Pro-Stock 165cc (Race-1): 1. KY Ahmed (TVS Racing, Chennai) (11:45.710); 2. Rajiv Sethu (Idemitsu Honda, Chennai) (11:45.953); 3. Jagan Kumar (TVS Racing, Chennai) (11:48.726).
Novice (Stock 165cc – Race 1): 1. Allwin Xavier (Sparks Racing, Thrissur) (12:54.639); 2. Alwin Sundar (AS Motorsports, Chennai) (12:54.845); 3. Samrul Zubair (Raceists, Hyderabad) (13:03.969). Race-2: 1. Allwin Xavier (12:57.130); 2. Alwin Sundar (12:57.484); 3. Jinendra Kiran Sangave (Sparks Racing, Kolhapur) (13:02.255).
TVS One-Make Championship – Girls (Apache RTR 200) 5 laps: . Deepika Reddy (Hyderabad) (11:15.788); 2. Rakshita Dave (Chennai) (11:15.948); 3. Adlin Seles (Chennai) (11:18.401).
Rookie (Apache RTR 200, Race-1): 1. Jinendra Kiran Sangave (Kolhapur) (12:52.657); 2. Chiranth Viswanath (Bengaluru) (12:52.784); 3. Abdul Bhasim (Chennai) (12:52.877).
Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup – NSF 250 Open (Race-1, 4 laps): 1. Sarthak Chavan (Pune) (07:26.094); 2. Kavin Quintal (Chennai) (07:32.266); 3. Mohsin Paramban (Valancherry) (07:34.544).
CBR 150 (Race-1): 1. Vivek Gaurav (13:04.401); 2 Siddesh Sawant (13:06.114); 3. Raheesh Khatri (13:06.157).
Hornet 2.0 (Support class, Race-1): 1. Kevin Kannan (Chennai) (13:25.983); 2. G Balaji (Chennai) (13:26.336); 3. Ajai Xavier (Nagerkoil) (13:31.652).
Race-2: 1. G Balaji (13:29.763); 2. Ajai Xavier (13:37.493); 3. Prabhu V (Chennai) (13:43.956).