Royal Enfield Continental GT-R 650 Media Race Experience: Nearly There, Once Again

Racing brings out the purest of emotions. It is true. I went through a whirlwind of emotions over the two days I pretended to be a racer, even if it was just amongst my fellow auto journo buddies. From positive encouragement to incredible elation to raging anger to determination to satisfaction, the Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup Media race had me go through them all. 

Positive Encouragement

Having observed and studied the racers tearing up the track, I picked up a few tricks that were going to be extremely useful for the practice and qualifying session. Afterall, we would have only twelve and ten minutes for each, and I had to make every millisecond of run time count.

Royal Enfield’s team of race managers, led by Aspi Bhatena, rolled out five fresh GT-R 650s for the session. Instantly, I felt at home with the bike, which is not easy as it is a nearly-200 kilo racer, making it a unique challenge. As it roared out of corners, it made sure I was on the ball for the gear shifts as it quickly went through its short rev band.

Incredible Elation

Taking all of the positivity into qualifying really helped. I got three timed laps and I was going pretty gung ho. What was my secret? It was pretty much what Aspi said when I approached him about how to negotiate a certain part of the track: “You have to go with full commitment.” Straight to the point, then. 

The short conversation fuelled me into braking as late as possible, carrying as much speed as I dared into the faster corners and even though you have to make the directional changes on the GT-R as smooth as possible, make the process as quick as possible without upsetting the bike’s rhythm.

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• This Stunning Custom Bike Puts The Racer Back In RE Continental GT 650

Back in the pits and I was over the moon. I had cracked into the 1 minute 22 second lap time, which was enough to secure pole position for the race on Sunday. I was 1.7 seconds quicker than rest. 

But as is the case with every single race I have been part of at Kari, the start was eventful.

Raging Anger

From riding fresh bikes on Saturday to jumping on the racers’ war afflicted machines was another fresh challenge for Sunday. Since there weren’t enough ‘new’ bikes for our race, we had to draw the keys of our racers from a bowl. 

#9 was going to be my race bike, and its tyre life was far from ideal. It had already done an entire weekend of racing with the racers, so when I received the bike, the sides (especially the right) had extreme wear. No choice but to soldier on.

The red lights came on and in a flash they went off. And literally seconds later, I saw Autocar’s Zaran Mody swooping past me. Determined to not let him get away, I stuck a move down into C4 that could’ve had disastrous consequences but somehow I got the lead back and focused on running away. However, my lead was short-lived. 

As I braked as late as possible for the Mickey Mouse section of the track and pushed on the left clip-on to tip the bike in, the clip-on loosened and went straight ahead. I was cursing at the top of my lungs inside my helmet. I knew my race was over and there was no coming back. 

However, an altercation between two other riders had put a stop to the race. Perfect. Tightened the clip-ons, both of them to be sure, and went back out for the restart.

Determination

At the second restart, I got a bad start. Not only did Zaran go by but also Powerdrift’s Varun Painter and Motoring World’s Janak Sorap. Varun had seized the lead from Zaran and I immediately got back up to third in the following few corners.

Following Zaran was tricky. He might’ve not been as fast during qualifying but he is a light pesky bugger. So as much as I tried to stick to his tail out of the corners, he would open up just enough of a gap on the straights so that I couldn’t out-brake him. 

And I couldn’t either. I was getting no confidence from the brakes and more so from the tyres while pushing hard. I had persistent small mid-corner squirminess in the faster bends. And as late I was braking in qualifying, I couldn’t quite muster the same in the race.

Satisfaction

I did successfully manage a move past Zaran and thought of hunting down Varun. But not more than a lap after claiming the second spot and Zaran once again engaged in a dog fight. 

This remained more or less the theme for the remainder of the race. Ultimately, third was the best I could achieve on the day. As I took the chequered flag, I felt satisfied. Looking back at how the race first started, third was far better than a DNF. 

What positives did I take away from the weekend? Well, I still was the fastest guy there. My qualifying time of 1:22.8 wasn’t beaten by anybody else in the race. Had I been on the grid with the racers, I would have been dead last, for sure. But not by much. The fastest guys were obviously 5 seconds quicker. The slowest one, though, was just a second away. Enough motivation to make me want to join the racers in 2023? Hopefully, if I get started on my exercise regimen again.