Organised circuit racing in India operates at the level it does today only because more than a decade ago a corporate decided that its public image could do with a more snazzy association.
This year will witness the 11th National Racing Championship
NEW DELHI: Organised circuit racing in India operates at the level it does today only because more than a decade ago a corporate decided that its public image could do with a more snazzy association.
JK Tyres is the main reason that the National Racing Championship exists to now enter its 11th year and within that company it has been the dogged vision of one man — Sanjay Sharma — that has charted the growth of Indian racing.
The cars they began with were rickety machines powered by the Maruti 800cc engines. Now the championship has Chevrolet, Hyundai power units along with Maruti and the Formula Rolon Chevrolet boasts of a 1,600cc engine. The cars are entirely indigenous products coming off the drawing table of B Vijay Kumar.
A majority of the parts are scavenged from road vehicles of different size and use. They may not be the best machines possible for the first step into racing but at Rs 10,000 a weekend, some of them offer what is probably the cheapest championship racing possible in the world.
That after all has been Sharma’s major success. Hardy, as he is called in motorsports circles, managed to keep a championship going year after year only because costs were kept to a minimum and the focus was on using local skills to ape what people abroad were racing in.
When Hardy used to say as far back as 2000 that JK will support an Indian all the way to Formula 1, he used to be ridiculed. Now the time has come that India has three drivers active in the big league. Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandhok and Armaan Ebrahim have all been nurtured through their formative years by JK and even now have the company as their sponsor.
The 12th edition of the NRC in 2008 will witness the introduction of two classes for superbikes —600cc and 1,000cc — apart from a new Enduro championship in the Formula Hyundai. The heartening bit is that there are now seven teams with individual sponsors for the six rounds beginning February 9.
Seats on the grid are no longer there for the taking. Indian racing has begun to come into its own and no wonder Hardy is often seen grinning ear-to-ear and telling whoever cares to listen “apni to lottery lag gayi” (I hit the jackpot).
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