Thaindian News

Coimbatore, July 27 (IANS) As the cars rev up their engines for the start of the second round of the 15th JK Tyre-FMSCI National Racing Championship here this weekend at the Kari Motor Speedway circuit, a full grid of upgraded Formula LGB Swift appears unlikely with nearly half of the 30 cars far from race readiness.

The Formula 4 cars, powered by the 1.3 litre Maruti Swift engine and tweaked up versions of a 10-year old design, missed the opening round of the championship earlier this month.

The word from the circuit is that not all cars were ready to race due to late receipt of the indigenously developed machines.

However, the absence of the single-seater class is unlikely to be felt with the Saloon cars, running in two classes - Super Saloon (modified) and Indian Junior Touring Cars (stock) - again hogging the limelight along with the Volkswagen Polo R Cup single-make series that will be run concurrently.

The opening round at the same venue earlier this month provided plenty of action with a series of collisions and spins marking the four saloon car races that threw up different winners as re-starts and engine failures also influenced the outcome.

Consequently, going into the second round this weekend, B. Balavijay and B. Vijaykumar who were tied in second place. Balvijay, the former IJTC champion, leads the Super Saloons class with 30 points, five ahead of M. Sivaramakrishnan, who notched his maiden win.

Yet, the spotlight will be on the likes of veteran Narayanaswamy Leelakrishnan, last year’s champion Vijaykumar Rajvirdhan and former champions Radha Selvarajan and Siddharth Kishore, who all had a wretched first round.

Leelakrishnan, a former multiple National Rally champion, was out of points in the first race and limped in third in the second to pick up 15 points. The aggressive Rajvirdhan was involved in a collision and came away with just 10 points while Selvarajan failed to finish both races and Kishore, after finishing third in the first outing, was involved in a collision in the next.

Likewise, in the IJTC class, young Feroze Khan, son of former saloon cars champion Ayub, delivered a second and win in the two races to take the lead with 43 points, 10 clear of Diljith Shaji with Fahad Kutty, who won the first race, in third spot, at 25.

The two IJTC races this weekend, again promise to provide some close racing as there is little to separate the front runners, while it is much the same further down the grid where there was plenty of competition.

The Polo R Cup should throw up its quota of thrills. The cars, powered by petrol engines (as against diesel last year), are visually quick with a bit more grunt, provided some thrilling wheel-to-wheel racing with Goa’s Avdumber Hede and Mexican entry Diego Duez winning a race apiece.

The only woman racer, Alisha Abdullah from Chennai, daughter of former bike racing champion Abdhullah, had a fine weekend with a second place finish to put herself in fourth position on the leaderboard with 38 points.

If the Rain Gods decide to attend the races, then a wet track should spice up the proceedings.