Motorsports: Focus on big guns

The big boys of two-wheeler racing, including international riders Krishnan Rajini and Sarath Kumar, will be in action at the Buddh International Circuit (BIC) here this weekend when the third round of the FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship will be held.

The races are to be held only in the Open category across all classes - the Group C (165 cc) which is part of the national championship, and One-Make championships for Yamaha, Honda and TVS bikes.

The attention, of course, would be on championship leaders Jagan Kumar (TVS Racing) and S. Vivek Pillai (Performance Racing), who are tied on 58 points in Group C Open class.

Ranged behind them are Sumit Lucas Toppo of Performance Racing (50 points), Rajini of Moto-Rev India (37) and teammate D. Dinesh Kumar (34) and Deepak Ravikumar of Ten10 Yamaha Racing (28).

With only two of the scheduled five rounds completed, the title race is still wide open and racing at the BIC would demand experience. It remains to be seen whether the likes of Rajini can shrug off an inconsistent start that has seen him going pointless in two of the four races thus far.

Another highlight would be the Honda CBR 250 Open class where Sarath Kumar, who has ridden in the MotoGP and other international competitions, leads with 73 points ahead of Toppo (53), Rajini (52), who has two wins to his credit, and Abhishek V. (51).

In the Yamaha series (YZ R15), Shyam Shankar (64) enjoys a nine-point lead over Mathana Kumar while M. Sudhakar (48) and P. Ananth Raj (48) are also in the hunt.

The TVS Races will see the Apache 180 in action with Ananth Raj (93) comfortably placed at the top in the championship followed by S.K. Prakash (73).

All the two-wheeler races will be decided over four laps around the spectacular 5.14 km long circuit that will be hosting the Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix next month.