CHENNAI: Sunday was a fruitful day for Honda at the Madras Motor Racing Track as their riders took home the honours in multiple classes at Round 4 of MMSC FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship.
Their dominance was particularly evident in the PS165 and PS201-300 classes, where their riders completed a clean sweep of the podium places. Rajiv Sethu won his sixth straight race in the PS165 class. He was followed by Sarath Kumar and K Kannan. Anish Shetty, Abhishek V and B Aravind took the first three spots in the P201-300 class.
Looking on in delight was Minoru Kato, president and CEO of Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India. He would have been even more encouraged by the performances in Honda’s one-make championships. In the NSF250R category, fourteen-year-old Mohamed Mikail, who Honda is sponsoring in the Thai Talent Cup, rewrote the record track time in the section that he himself had set. Geoffrey, another 14-year-old, came second.
“Honda has been involved in racing for more than 60 years,” Kato said. “And I believe that the younger generation is showing immense promise. We just started the India talent hunt last year and we have already found some potential riders. This time, there is a 12-year-old in the NSF250R category.”
Kato, who took over Honda India two years ago, believes that the NSF250R bikes — which are Moto3 grade — are the best way to groom talented young riders. “From our experiences in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, NSF250R is the best way to develop young riders. When I first came to India, I asked the team to focus on developing young riders. We were finally able to convince the government to let us export the 250R bikes.”
Prabhu Nagaraj, vice-president (brand and communications) at HMSI was also pleased with how his riders had developed. “Round 4 has added 10 more podiums including four wins to Honda’s championship kitty,” he said. “Both Rajiv and Anish are leading with their right race-craft. What’s most promising is that our riders are now not challenging competition but themselves.”