Vijaykumar, Feroze bag honours in National racing

Coimbatore - In what turned out to be Indian version of the Demolition Derby, veteran B. Vijayakumar of Prime Racing emerged almost unscathed from the wreckage and chaos to win the Super Saloon class race in the Touring Cars category as the curtain came down on the first round of the JK Tyre-FMSCI National Racing Championship here on Sunday.

In an incident-filled race, a seven-car pile-up in the first lap led to a restart. On resumption, three more cars retired barely 50 metres from the start, resulting in another stoppage. Following the re-start, Radha Selvarajan jumped into the lead and looked good to win the race before his engine blew and allowed a waiting Vijayakumar go in front and win the race.

Of the 19 starters, only nine crossed the finish line while veterans B. Balavijay (Moto-Rev India) and Narayanaswamy Leelakrishnan (Big Foots) followed Vijayakumar home.

“It was a good practice for my starts and on the third start, I was behind Radha (Selvarajan). I started catching up with him, but I was also concerned about the fuel level in my car and decided to conserve it for the final laps. Unfortunately for him, his engine blew and I went in front to win,” said Vijayakumar.

There was a lot of drama in the Indian Junior Touring Cars race where the winner Fahad Kutty was later excluded for technical infringement, giving Feroze Khan the top step of the podium, followed by Diljith Shaji and S. Sreeram.

The race was closely fought up and down the grid. Feroze, who took the lead early on, yielded ground to Kutty with Shaji in hot pursuit. The trio finished in that order, but Kutty found himself excluded.

The two Volkswagen Polo R Cup races threw up different winners with Goa’s Abdumber Hede taking the top spot in the first and Mexican Deigo Duez, sponsored by JK Tyre, drove a fine race to win the second.

The results:

Touring Cars – Super Saloon (15 laps): B Vijaykumar (Prime Racing) 1 (19mins, 16.391); B Balavijay (Moto-Rev India) 2 (19:36.639); N Leelakrishnan (Big Foots) 3 (19:38.756).

Indian Junior Touring Cars (15 laps): S Feroze Khan 1 (20:43.084); Diljith Shaji (Eram Group Sports Club) 2 (20:44.347); S Sreeram (Mega Racing) 3 (20:45.209).

Polo R Cup (Race 1, 11 laps): Avdumber Hede 1 (14:30.038); Mihir Dharkar 2 (14:30.744); A Sandeep Kumar 3 (14:33.244).

(Race 2, 15 laps): Deigo Duez (Mexico) 1 (19:17.543); Alisha Abdullah 2 (19:24.290); Prashanth Tharani Singh 3 (19:24.881).