TVS Young Media Racing Championship 2022 Round 1: Getting My First Taste Of Track Racing

I am not a racer, although that's what I wanted to be since I first started riding. I pursued it a little, hit my limits quickly, and decided to move on. And so, in 2013 after two failed attempts at qualifying for the One Make Championship rounds organised by TVS, I called it quits. Racing was over, but strangely, something for the track was not. But before I pursued that thought, I had to find out why I was so fast in Lavasa but so frazzled on the track?

Shumi recently wrote an Instagram post addressing this, linking it below. The post beautifully captures the transformation a street rider undergoes when out on a track. There’s so much space there to move that your commuter brain has to first forcibly learn to relax. That process takes time, but once you learn it with repetition, you finally begin to move better on a motorcycle. And in 2015, I took on a weekend session to learn just this. 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Shubhabrata ‘Shumi’ Marmar ✊🏽 (@shu_mar)

The unlearning was difficult, and it took a few years to get the right drills right. Then came a seven-year hiatus, and I’d also moved to off-road riding for a while. So my habits were different too. Then came this invite from TVS, and until the night before qualifying, I wasn’t told that I’m some wildcard entry. Round one of the Young Media Racer Programme was being held at Kari Motor Speedway! I love this track, it feels like you’re riding in Japan. Best sunsets too! Our rounds were slotted between the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship. Hence, the mood was not hard to find, surrounded by the best of the best, one ring, flat out!

Saturday, 11th of May- Free practice and Qualifying: 

Kari has recently seen a layout change, if you follow guys like Shumi, Kartik, Varun, Jehan, Arun, and the bunch, you’ve probably heard about it. The old layout was fun, but the new one had us all a bit anxious. Our tools for the day were 12 lightly modded Apache RTR 200 4Vs. The guys I was going up against were fellow auto-journalists from the fraternity. They’d seen each other ride at MMRT just a month ago when 15 of them received training from TVS and then battled it out for the top 12 spots. There was an empty seat a few weeks later, one that I went on to fill as the wild card. I could hear my anxiety beating in my ears as we rolled into the track. I had a history of not qualifying after all. 

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At practice, I was nervously moving around on the bike and in my leathers. These Apaches are light, agile, and came wearing skinner 90-front/110-rear section TVS Eurogrip Protorq Extreme tyres. The grip on these is phenomenal, the quickness with which it allows directional change can be pretty intimidating at first. But I soon found my groove. When we came back in, I had done better than I thought. I was still pretty nervous about qualifying, as it’s hard to find your pace when there’s no one to chase. But over the years, I’d learn to silence the mind. It allowed some riding to happen. I thank running for this. It demands mental silence to cover distances without suffering. Shortly after quali, the timings were in. I was happy because I’d learned to keep the mental chatter down and it allowed me to take pole position. 

Sunday, 12th of May- Race Day!

We were to race in the afternoon, 1330hrs to be precise. It was hot outside, and as we lined up on the grid, the anxiety was ripe. Why not? Hot on my heels were Mandar(from Evo India), Karan Singh(from Auto-X), and Stephen. G(DriveSpark). Getting a good start was critical, I messed it up. These races are televised on YouTube, and we all had someone watching. It felt nice. Show your support to the sport, the annual racing calendar is available online and races are streamed on MMRT’s official YouTube channel.

We lined up for the final run of the weekend. Compared to the noobs we were post-practice, the next eight laps were going to change the way each one of us would unlock speed. Lights off and down the straight we shot. The first three laps were good. I found a good pace and maintained a decent lead too. But around lap 5, I started to lose focus, my mind was loud again. Now, that’s new learning to work on. Consistency. By lap 7, I was under heavy pressure from Karan, he’d caught up and taken the lead. Mandar meanwhile posted the fastest lap of the weekend.

After leading for seven laps, I was chasing on the last. While keeping up with Karan was still on my mind, keeping calm felt more important. So, when Karan went down two corners before the finish, it felt unfair, he raced well. But two corners away was the chequered flag, I had to take it. Realigned my focus and across the line. I’d overcome an old habit of caving under pressure. I’d finally learned to hold my own. That was a greater personal victory. 

These racing programs for us media guys are merely a peep into what is one of the most mentally and physically demanding forms of sport-racing. For you, it can be a launch pad to your dreams of pursuing racing as a career. And that’s where programs like TVS’ One Make Championships are now attracting athletes to the sport by the dozen, way more than what I saw in 2010. It’s nice to see racing grow well in India. Next round, we’ll dive into these RTR 200 4V race bikes a bit more.