The Valley Run 2015

Page 1

The air is thick with tension as petrolheads line up motorcycles of all shapes and sizes on the starting line and blast off as soon the Christmas tree lights up. Your nose fills up with the smell of burnt rubber and the acrid two-stroke fumes; your ears are treated to the symphony of exhaust notes and the crowd’s screams, and the eyes are enthralled with a host of exotics and skeletal motorcycles. If you are one of the few people who get titillated by stuff like this, then Valley Run certainly feels like home.

The 2015 Valley Run organised by Elite Octane Inc. at the Aamby Valley Airstrip on January 10 and 11, saw the participation of over 230 drag race enthusiasts from across the country. The Valley Run is one of the very few platforms where the event-starved motorsport enthusiasts get a chance to test out the straight-line performance of their machines.

The airstrip played host to some of the finest tuned cars and bikes competing for titles in different categories and saw participants flocking in from as far as Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Gujarat. Like every motorsport event, the entries were categorised into classes depending on the displacement, engine type and the type of modifications. It’s not every day that you get to see a line-up ranging from the humble Yamaha RX100 (not so humble in their stripped-out, drag tuned avatars) to the colossal Nissan GT-R, all in one place! We being BikeWale, turned a blind eye towards all the cars as the lunatic drag-spec two-wheeled machines had us giggling like idiots.

Page 2

The motorcycle entries were segregated into different two-stroke and four-stroke classes in displacement categories of 100-225cc, 250-360cc, 361-500cc, 600-850cc, 851-1050cc and 1051-1450cc,with separate classes for two-stroke machines as well as the fastest wheelies. The event saw the participation of highly tuned Yamaha RX100s, RX135s and RD 350s in the two-stroke categories. The stripped out, barebones screamers raced down the track quicker than their four-stroke counterparts, setting impressive times.

While the main attractions of the 2014 Valley Run was the 11-time World Drag Racing Champion, Rickey Gadson, this year’s edition saw Furious 7 star Ali Faizal scorch the airstrip in exhibition runs on the second day. Another highlight event of the event was six-year old motocross rider, Raheesh Khatri, being crowned as the world’s youngest drag racer.

The four-strokes’ top honours in the 100-250cc category was taken by a heavily souped up Bajaj Pulsar 220,the 251-360cc by a Ninja 300 and the 361-500cc by a Honda CBR 400. However, the airstrip saw the re-enactment of David vs. Goliath as the class-winning Yamaha RX135’s time of 13.324 seconds was quicker than all these four-stroke racers.

Page 3

The latter part of the Day One saw the 600-850cc class of motorcycles race against the clock, in which a Suzuki GSX-R750 secured the top position. The second day saw the superbikes scorch the airstrip with their sub-11 second runs. A BMW S1000 RR emerged victorious in the foreign open class by clocking a time of 9.769 seconds, outrunning the likes of Yamaha YZR-R1s and Suzuki GSX-R1000s, and making it the quickest two-wheeler of the event.

All the races at The Valley Run were conducted under supervision of experts and the racers were equipped with proper safety gear whilst riding the bikes. Overall, The Valley Run this year as very well organised, but seemed to be a little low on enthusiasm. A quick word with the organisers revealed that many entries had to be turned away this year due to time constraints.

Though doing burnouts and smoking rubbers might seem like a fun thing to do, it isn’t something which will get you the fastest time in a drag race. Drag racing is all about minimizing wheelspin, precise upshifting, lightning-quick reflexes and most important of all, holding the bike in the straight line. Racers and mechanics put in a lot of efforts into preparing their vehicles for the drag races. These speed junkies patiently go through days, weeks and sometimes months of preparation, to experience these few precious moments of euphoria. Spending such insane amounts of money, energy and sweat for just a few seconds of the adrenaline rush might seem bizarre for normal people, but racing has never been about logic, has it? For now, I’ll let the pictures do all the talking.