Pune: The stage is set for a battle-royal wherein six riders will don the podium as National Supercross champions in their respective classes at the end of the fifth and final round of MRF National Supercross championship 2011 on Saturday. December 3.
The championship scheduled at the Amanora Park Town, Hadapsar will also mark the return of this off-road racing to a location where the sport was once a regular feature.
Awaiting the contestants is a 600 meters track, designed by veteran riders Pratap Bhagwat and Ashok Yande which consists of eight single and double jumps and the spectacular 70-ft table top jump apart from positive/ negative berms.
Going by the first impression of the track, the riders expressed their happiness to what they claimed is a “compact and flowing track,” after completing their mandatory practice round on Friday.
Shyam Kothari, who lends his presence to the event as president Sportstrek apart from carrying years of riding experience, informed, “if any rider does not take a double (jump) well he’ll miss the following doubles.” With eight double bumps lined up Kothari technical insight was simple. In his words, “Saturday’s run for the rider is not about who can go the fastest, but about who can be negotiating the track smooth and flowing.”
Having lined up a track that expects to be competitive the expectation of a fierce fight for titles are expected overall, with all eyes on the prestigious Class 1 Foreign Open Group-A event which features Aravind KP of TVS Racing and Pradeep HK.
Aravind is leading the section ahead of his teammate Pradeep HK by 15 points, which would mean that Pradeep will be hoping for a little luck to overtake his teammate’s 15 point lead of the title. Aravind (146 points) and Pradeep HK (131) astride a TVS RTR 250, will also have to cope with reigning national champion of the class CS Santosh.
In the India Experts Class (2 and 4 stroke up to 260cc), too Aravind is the leading man with 115 points riding on his TVS RTR 160. Again Pradeep is closely following him in the second position with 105 points.
The National supercross is the biggest off-road two-wheeler event being held in India and is run under the aegis of the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI), the national governing body for motorsports.
This will be for the first time that the event will be hosted at Amanora Park Town—a unique, exclusive and first of its kind township in the state spearheaded by Aniruddha Deshpande.
The 2010 champion CS Santosh is back in action after winning the Chandigarh round and securing second position in Kolhapur. He was out of action in the first two rounds due to injury leaving Aravind and Pradeep open gates to dominate.
In the Private Foreign Class, it will be Harith Noah of Kerala and Alan Sequeira of Goa who will fight it out. There will be sizable number of local entries in the event though they will be out of championship race as they have not participated in the full season.
