Raghul, Arjun battle to victories in racing nationals

Seasoned racer Raghul Rangasamy converted his pole position into a commanding victory to head the MRF F1600 class leaderboard in the fourth round of the national championship at the Madras Motor Racing Track, here on Saturday.

As well as 25-year old Rangasamy drove, the spotlight also fell on Coimbatore's Arjun Balu (Race Concepts) who won a tight and thrilling race in the high-end Indian Touring Cars class while his team-mate Varun Anekar from Bengaluru who started ninth and from the pit-lane, finished first in the Super Stock category.

The Formula LGB 1300 double-header produced two different winners in Ashwin Datta (Momentum Motorsports) from Chennai and Sohil Shah (M Sport) from Bengaluru.

The results put Shah at the top of the championship standings in this class with a tally of 126 points to Datta's 123 with the third title contender Nabil Hussain (M Sport), also from Chennai, on 117, going into the final round next month.

Rangasamy of Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu moved past championship leader Ashwin Datta, who finished a distant eighth.

Ahead of the two races to be run on Sunday, Rangasamy has 109 points to Datta's 100.

The championship winner at the end of the season, earns a ticket to the Mazda Road To Indy shootout in the United States this winter.

The day also belonged to Arjun Balu who scored his third lights-to-flag victory of the season in the ITC category, holding off last year's champion Arjun Narendran (Arka Motorsport), also from Coimbatore, in a heart-stopping eight-lap race.

The win took Balu to second on the leaderboard with 93 points while Narendran, who missed two rounds, is on 68 while Bengaluru's Ashish Ramaswamy (Arka Motorsport) who finished third on Saturday, continues to lead with 116 points, going into tomorrow's Race-2.

Dhruv Mohite from Kolhapur notched his fourth win in six starts in the Volkswagen Ameo Cup race ahead of Saurav Bandyopadhyay (Mumbai) and Jeet Jhabakh (Hyderabad).

--IANS

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