COIMBATORE: As the cars line up at the Kari Motor Speedway here before the first race in the Formula LGB 4 category of the JK Tyre FMSCI National Racing Championship, there is a dash of red to the tail of the grid, their fiery chassis glowing in the afternoon sun. As the race progresses, most of the red cars stay at the tail, but a couple of them surge ahead and leave a few rivals behind. On the sidelines, Sarosh Hataria is highly excited. It may only be Race 2, but his girls have already begun getting the better of boys.
The red cars in question are the ones of Ahura Racing — India’s first-ever all-female racing team. And the man behind the idea is Hataria, a former racer and multiple-time national champion. Ahura Racing, for him, is a tribute to his mother Uma. “When I was young, she used to race stock cars,” he says. “In 1987, she was the stock car champion and I used to hang around at racetracks all the time. That was how I got hooked in the first place.”
As he progressed through a career in motorsports, Hataria noticed that the likes of his mother were far and few in between. “There are few women getting involved in motorsports and I want to change that,” he says. “Unlike other sports, motorsports does not have a separate league for women. I want them to fight against the boys.”
Ahura Racing has six main drivers and a six reserve ones, all assembled after a talent hunt conducted across the country. They just have to pay for their travel — Hataria takes care of everything else. The bunch that he has managed to assemble is diverse — there’s a dentist, an architect, a few students, an NRI who was in India on vacation and a couple of mothers. But the one thing he is concerned about is their motivation levels. “I want them to look at this as a career like the male racers does,” he says. “This year, we kept the age requirement between 15-35 years. Next year, we are going to narrow it down to 15-20.”
Hataria doesn’t have to be worried about everyone though. Megaa KS, a 21-year-old, is ecstatic in the pits. “I managed to beat four boys,” she says. “It’s a great feeling.” The student from Coimbatore is keen to build on that. “I definitely want to be here next year. Hopefully one day, I will get to race abroad as well.”
Her level of ambition is shared by 29-year-old Diana from Pune, who signed up for the talent hunt after stumbling across it on the Facebook, Instagram and a Parsi Whatsapp group that her husband is part of. She missed the first round in July but is excited to have made her debut here. “It is a dream come true for me,” she says. “I want to do my best and improve enough to be on the podium here. It’s not every day that you get the chance to do all this with the team taking care of everything.”
Saturday’s results: Euro JK 18: Race 1: 1. Nayan Chatterjee; 2. Karthik Tharani; 3. Brayan Perera; Race 2: 1. Nayan Chatterjee; 2. Karthik Tharani; 3. Ashwin Datta. LGB 4: 1. Vishnu Prasad (Msport); 2. Rohit Khanna (Dark Don Racing); 3. Raghul Rangasamy (MSport). Suzuki Gixxer Cup: 1. Joseph Matthew; 2. Syed Muzammil Ali; 3. Sachin Chaudhary. JK Tyre Novice Cup: 1. Vishwas Vijayaraj (DTS racing), 2. Siddharth Mehdiratta (Momentum Motorsports), 3. Hashim EKP (DTS racing). Red Bull Road To Rookies: 1. Jerome Vanlalrengpuia; 2. PC Andy Lalhmangaihsanga; 3. Eshaan Shankar.