Double for Karthik Tharani as VW Ventos dominate

Piloting the turbo-charged VW Vento, Karthik Tharani authored a dream script for Volkswagen Motorsport with a grand double in the ITC category as the second round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Car Racing Championship concluded at Kari Motor Speedway here Sunday.

Also scoring a double were Hyderabads Jeet Jhabak in the VW Ameo Class and Bengaluru schoolboy Sohil Shah (M Sport) in the Formula LGB 1300 category as he took top honours in Race 1 and 3 while Nellores Viswas Vijayaraj (DTS Racing) won Race 2.

R P Rajarajan (Performance Racing) won a close Super Stock race that went down to the wire.

For the factory-supported VW Motorsport team, making their debut in the Indian Touring Cars category, it was a highly-successful weekend as they won all the three races.

The races in all categories, except VW Ameo Class, were run on wet tyres in view of forecast of rains which, however, stayed away.

The two ITC races highlighted Sundays proceedings with extremely close contests and incidents in Race 3 bringing out the Safety Car.

Having finished second behind team-mate, Kolhapurs Dhruv Shivaji Mohite in the first of the ITC triple-header yesterday, Chennai-based Tharani led a 1-2-3 finish for VW Motorsport in Race 2 and followed it up with a thrilling win in Race 3 in the afternoon, ahead of Mohite and Arjun Balu (Race Concepts).

In both races, Mohite finished second while team-mate Ishaan Dodhiwala took the third spot in Race 2, but spun off in the next outing that led to a safety car period.

Balu finished a creditable third, his second of the weekend.

While the podium finishers hogged the limelight, it was 77-year old D Vidyaprakash who stole the hearts with stirring drives that saw him finish fourth in both the races today.

His defending the third spot in Race-2 until late in the last lap against Dodhiwala, 29, before letting the youngster pass, earned him high praise for clean racing.

"I just cant believe that someone at his age can drive like that. I couldnt pass him until the last lap when he didn't stop me from overtaking after I put the nose on the inside line," said Dodhiwala after his third place finish.

The Championship will now move to the MMRT track at Sriperumbudur near Chennai, where Round 3 will be held from July 19 to 21.

The results (Provisional, all 10 laps unless mentioned):