The weekend in Chennai was expected to be a close competition between youngsters. And with marginal differences between winners and second-finishers, we were not disappointed. Read about the National 2W Racing Championship Round 3 in our weekend review.
Friday – The fight for positions
Friday marked the first day of on track action. For the qualifying session, it was close fight between Saarthak Chavan and Chiranth Vishwanath.
In the Pro Stock (301-400cc) category, Saarthak snatched the pole position from Chiranth by a tenth of a second. A new name at the top of the leaderboard was of Alwin Sundar (KTM Gusto Racing). He had the provisional pole in this category until the final 2 minutes of the session, before Saarthak and Chiranth finished their final laps. He ultimately finished P3 in the qualifying, still a noteworthy feat.
For the Pro Stock 165cc category, the top 2 were reversed. Chiranth took pole from Sarthak by 1.4 seconds! Chennai’s KY Ahamed completed the front row.
In the Stock Novice 165 cc category, Abdul Basim took P1 honors while in the Novice 301-400cc class, Kaushik Subbaiah Ganesan was P1. In the Girls Stock 165cc, Ann Jennifer will be starting from pole.
For the Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup, Mohsin Paramban from Malappuram was P1. Meanwhile in the TVS One-Make Championship, Senthilkumar topped the RR310 Open grid while Saimah Ajaz Baig was atop the Girls RTR 200 leaderboard.
Saturday – first day of racing action
Saturday marked the first day of racing action and it was nail-biting. Starting from the Pro-Stock 301-400cc category, Sarthak and Chiranth got good starts and soon broke away from the field. They both maitained status quo until the last lap. Chiranth and Sarthak both exchanged leads within a space of two corners. However, when this scrap was over, Sarthak was the leader of the two. Desperate to win, Chiranth sent it around the outside in the last right hander. Unfortunately, he lost his bike and Sarthak crossed the line to win.
The podium was completed by Rahil Pillarisetty (KTM Gusto Racing India), ahead of team-mate Alwin Sundar. Chiranth did manage to get up and crossed the line in P10.
In the Pro-Stock 165cc class, it was redemption for Chiranth Vishwanath as he managed to win the race. However, it was not without a fight. Starting with a wounded leg from the morning’s 301-400cc race’s crash, Chiranth got into contact with Sarthak. This time, it was Sarthak who went down. However, this meant that Vishwanath had fallen behind Jagan Kumar and KY Ahamed. Still, Chiranth made easy work of the two and finished the race to take his maiden win of the 2024 season of National 2W Racing Championship. Sarthak recovered from the fall to finish fifth.
Elsewhere, Abdul Basim went ahead and won again in the Novice Stock 165cc category. Meanwhile in the Girls Stock 165cc category, we had a new winner in the form of Ryhana Bee.
In the Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup (NSF 250R), Mohsin Paramban converted his pole position into a win. The podium was completed by Kolhapur’s Siddesh Sawant and Prakash Kamath from Bengaluru.
For the TVS One-Make Championship, Manoj Yesuadiyan crossed the finish line first in the Open (RR310) class, while in Rookie (Apache RTR 200) class, Harshith Bogar crossed the finish line first. In the Girls (Apache RTR 200) category, Saimah Baig scored her second win.
Sunday – Final day of racing
As almost by force of habit, Chiranth and Sarthak were again at it. Starting from P10 in Race 2 of Pro Stock 301-400cc class, Chiranth passed multiple time National Champion, Rajini Krishnan and many more. He even passed 6 riders in the first lap itself. He would later go on to win this race from Rajini Krishnan and Alwin Sundar. Sarthak, meanwhile, stalled his bike in the first lap and finally finished in 8th.
In the Pro Stock 165cc race, Sarthak came home in P1 after starting from P5. This was his second win of the season in this class. Chiranth was starting on pole in this class, but after leading for few laps, he was overtaken by Jagan Kumar and KY Ahamed, and soon by Sarthak as well. Finishing on the podium was Jagan Kumar and Chiranth Vishwanath, who put up a late fight.
Read review from the previous weekend here.
17 Year-old Abdul Basim and 15 year old Rakshitha Dave topped the classes of Stock 165cc (Novice) and Girls (Stock 165cc) races, respectively. Meanwhile, there was a new winner in the Stock 301-400cc class. Bengaluru’s Savion Sabu won that race with a dominating performance.
In the Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup, Siddesh Sawant scored his maiden win. Savion Sabu and Beedani Rajendar completed the podium.
For the TVS One-Make Championship, Senthilkumar C won his fourth race in this season in Open RR310 class. Meanwhile, CS Kedarnath recorded his first victory in RTR 200 category.
This marked the end of National 2W Racing Championship Round 3. The series will be back from 6th-8th September.
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