National Racing: Rajini pips Sarath to win Honda CBR 250 race

K. Rajini Krishnan got past Sarath Kumar on the final lap to win the Honda CBR 250 race in the third round of the MMSC Indian National Motorcycle Championship here Saturday.

Four races took place in the day and the highlight was the wheel-to wheel battle between India's top two riders Sarath and Rajini Krishnan.

Rajini got past Sarath on the final corner in the final lap to take the win by 0.0157. It was the first time that a two-wheeler race was held at the Buddh International Circuit with Honda, Yamaha and TVS participating this weekend.

Last time out in Chennai both collided and it looked like it might happen again but both riders put on a scintillating performance to show their class. Sarath, who started on pole, led off the line followed by Abhishek V and Rajini. Rajini soon passed Abhishek and had a race long battle with Sarath. At the start of the last lap it looked like Sarath had done enough but Rajini came hard at him and they were side-by-side coming into the fast corner.

Rajini dived down the inside of Sarath and made the move stick and crossed the line in first place ahead of Sarath. Abhishek V. finished in the third place.

First race of the day saw the TVS-Apache RTR180 in action and Mathana Kumar took the honours with a convincing win. He was followed across the finish line by Ananth P. Raj, who finished 5.898 seconds behind. The battle for third went down to the wire with a three-way-battle between Arvind Ganesh, S.K. Prakash and Alwyn Jebaz. Arvind came out in front to take the final step of the podium.

The Yamaha-Y2F R15 provided some more nail biting action with Shyam Shankar and Vivek Pillai trading places all through the race.

Shyam and Vivek came out of the last corner side-by-side with Shyam just edging ahead as they crossed the finish line 0.083 seconds ahead.

The last race of the day saw the NRC Experts 165cc take to the track. K Jagan took a victory ahead of Harry Sylvester and Deepak R. Jagan started well and led from start to finish easily. Harry and Deepak behind him battled each other the whole race with almost nothing between them.