Introduction
In the brief span that I have been riding motorcycles, I have had quite a few knee-downs. However, these aren’t the ones that racers and motorcycle enthusiasts brag about. My kind of knee-downs were usually followed by an elbow-down, a shoulder-down and a helmet-down, and ended with me limping back towards the crashed motorcycle. The last weekend however, was quite different. I finally experienced my first ‘skkkrrrsh’ of the knee slider on tarmac at the Madras Motor Race Track (MMRT) in Irungattukottai, Chennai. But how I wish the circumstances and the outcome were different! More on that later.
The Race 3 of the TVS Young Media Rider Program was conducted at the MMRT track last weekend, along with the Round 4 of the 2017 Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship. I had been to this track in July earlier this year, for the Race 2, but there was a big change for this round. A heavy downpour the day before had left certain parts of the track waterlogged. As such, all the races over the weekend were conducted over the club circuit, which is a smaller 2.1 kilometre loop. The number of laps had been increased to eight to compensate for the smaller length of the track.
Practice Session
Our race weekend started with the practice session at 12:30pm. Unlike in the previous two races where these sessions had been quite brief, we had the track for ourselves for 30 minutes. I started out with enthusiasm, pushing myself from the first lap itself, rather than slowly picking up pace. Which was a big mistake. I was completely exhausted in the first few laps, and the sweltering Chennai heat didn’t help. And this reflected on the time sheets once we were back in the pits. I had clocked a poor 1:26.8 minutes in my fastest lap, which put me in the seventh position. Nevertheless, this time I was 5 seconds quicker than the fastest lap I had clocked on the club circuit during the TVS Training School, earlier this year.
Qualifying Session
My second mistake of the weekend was probably not rushing to have lunch right after the practice session. Turns out, the caterers had run out of vegetarian food, which meant that I had to go into the qualifying session just on ORS solution. Everything seemed to be going haywire and I couldn’t focus on sticking to the racing line or adhering to the braking and turn-entry markers. I gave up after running off the track twice. Back in the pits, the timings were out and my fastest lap was 1:27.0, which was slower than my practice session time. Clearly, there was a lot of work to be done.
Fortunately, the race was scheduled on the next day. Wary not to repeat the same mistake, I had a hearty breakfast before reaching the track. As we walked towards the pits, we saw the Apache RTR 200 4V race bikes lined up in the morning sun, ticking away as their chromed exhausts cooled down in the breeze, waiting to run the world’s fuel reserves dry. The bikes had just returned to the pits after TVS One Make Open category race and were being inspected by the mechanics ahead of the Media race.
Wheelie Saturday
My dismal performance had pushed me right at the back of the grid. Looking at the back of all your fellow competitors as you wait at the starting grid isn’t a pleasant sight. By the time the red lights came out, I could feel my heart pounding as if it was trying rip open my chest and the leathers. Determined to get a good start, I decided to launch at 7,000rpm instead of the usual 5,000rpm. And I made a mess out of it. Wheelieing during a start might make you look cool, but it can also jumble up your start. While the rest of the competitors raced ahead, I was left in their wake trying to keep the front end down. I now had eight laps to make amends.
By the first half of the lap, I had started closing in on the two competitors in front of me and overtook them in quick succession through C11 and C12. However, they had slipstreamed behind me through the start/finish straight and were breathing down my neck, their loud exhausts reminding me how close they were. I managed to maintain the 6th position up to the fifth lap, right until I got my first ever knee-down on the C3. Now this should have been a moment of elation, but the sheer unfamiliarity of the feeling made me chop the throttle and sit up on the motorcycle, severely cutting my pace and making me run wide. Competition number 6 snatched the opportunity and shot past me. I somehow recovered and got back to the race pace, avoiding dropping to the back of the grid once again. Now it was a heated battle for the 6th spot.
At the start/finish straight of the 6th lap, I slipstreamed behind #6, gained some pace before taking the inner line through C1. This gave me an advantage as I inched past him to regain the 6th position. However, #6 wasn’t one to give up easily. Every time I stole a glance behind me, I could see him right on my tail. In the next lap, I became a victim of my own trick as #6 inched past me and took the inner line through C1. The racing was so intense that I almost ran into him twice trying to take the inner line through a corner while he turned in early to close that window. In the last lap, I saw an opportunity to overtake him through C3. However, I had entered too fast and couldn’t make the turn, and went straight off the track into the gravel. And that was the end of it. I somehow managed to finish the race in the 7th position.
I had been in a motorcycle race before, but that race wasn’t this intense, and I had enjoyed every bit of this rush. It wasn’t exactly a happy ending, and I do realise that I made mistakes, quite a few of them. However, the bug has bitten and I know that I am going to snatch every opportunity I get to ride on a race track. For now, I have to take consolation in the fact that my fastest lap in the race was 6.2 seconds quicker than in my previous outing, and that this race gave me my first ever knee-down.
Photography by Murali Krishnan
Gallery
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TVS Apache RTR 200 4V Cornering
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