Jagan Kumar of TVS Racing finished third in the premier Pro-Stock 165cc race, but the 15 points were enough to fetch him his 10th National crown with a race to spare in the fifth and final round of the MRF-MMSC-FMSCI National motorcycle racing championships at the MMRT, here on Friday.
Bengaluru-based Anish Damodara Shetty (Race Concepts) astride a KTM 390, shrugged off a hip injury he suffered after a high-speed crash in the qualifying session a couple of hours earlier, to win a thrilling race in the Pro-Stock 301-400cc category that headlines the championship.
Also hogging the limelight was Thrissur’s Allwin Xavier (Sparks Racing) who won both the races in the Novice (Stock 165cc) category to move to third spot on the championship leaderboard.
Alwin Sundar (AS Motorsports), with two second-place finishes on Friday, took a 16-point lead over another Thrissur rider Anfal Akdhar (Rockstar Racing) to head the championship standings in this category with one more race to be run on Saturday.
Jagan, 33, said: “Title No. 10 was always my goal. In fact, after I won title No. 5, I said I would like to double it, but people laughed. Anyway, I am extremely happy to have sealed the championship and it has been a long and difficult journey for me. Today, I did not really push in the race as I wanted to pick up the points I needed for the championship.”
Provisional results (six laps):
Pro-Stock 301-400cc (Race-1): 1. Anish Damodara Shetty (Race Concepts, Bengaluru) (11mins 19.140secs); 2. K.Y. Ahmed (TVS Racing, Chennai) (11:19.332); 3. Rahil Shetty (Gusto Racing, Hyderabad) (11:19.636).
Pro-Stock 165cc (Race-1): 1. K.Y. Ahmed (11:45.710); 2. Rajiv Sethu (Idemitsu Honda, Chennai) (11:45.953); 3. Jagan Kumar (TVS Racing, Chennai) (11:48.726).
Novice (Stock 165cc–Race 1): 1. Allwin Xavier (Sparks Racing, Thrissur) (12:54.639); 2. Alwin Sundar (AS Motorsports, Chennai) (12:54.845); 3. Samrul Zubair (Raceists, Hyderabad) (13:03.969).
Race-2: 1. Allwin Xavier (12:57.130); 2. Alwin Sundar (12:57.484); 3. Jinendra Kiran Sangave (Sparks Racing, Kolhapur) (13:02.255).
TVS One-Make Championship, Girls (Apache RTR 200) five laps: 1. Deepika Reddy (Hyderabad) (11:15.788); 2. Rakshita Dave (Chennai) (11:15.948); 3. Adlin Seles (Chennai) (11:18.401).
Rookie (Apache RTR 200, Race-1): 1. Jinendra Kiran Sangave (Kolhapur) (12:52.657); 2. Chiranth Viswanath (Bengaluru) (12:52.784); 3. Abdul Bhasim (Chennai) (12:52.877).
Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup–NSF 250 Open (Race-1, four laps): 1. Sarthak Chavan (Pune) (07:26.094); 2. Kavin Quintal (Chennai) (07:32.266); 3. Mohsin Paramban (Valancherry) (07:34.544).
CBR 150 (Race-1): 1. Vivek Gaurav (13:04.401); 2 Siddesh Sawant (13:06.114); 3. Raheesh Khatri (13:06.157).
Hornet 2.0 (Support class, Race-1): 1. Kevin Kannan (Chennai) (13:25.983); 2. G. Balaji (Chennai) (13:26.336); 3. Ajai Xavier (Nagerkoil) (13:31.652).
Race-2: 1. G Balaji (13:29.763); 2. Ajai Xavier (13:37.493); 3. V. Prabhu (Chennai) (13:43.956).
