Harpal Singh Bedi

Coimbatore:  Leading racers of the country will drive for glory and top honours at  the JK Tyre  National Racing Championship which returns for the second round of its silver jubilee season this weekend  (October 29th-30th) on  Coimbatore’s Kari Motor Speedway. 

Over a hundred seasoned and rookie racers will race around the challenging 2.1-km long layout as they battle for  titles across four categories that make up India’s most coveted racing championship.

In the LGB Formula 4 category, all eyes will be on Arya Singh (26 points), Ashwin Datta (18 points), Tijil Rao (18 points), Sandeep Kumar (15 points) who dominated last month’s season-opening round, also held at Kari, for Dark Don Racing.

But, despite their imperious showing, they  will face stiff competition from Ahura Racing’s seasoned campaigners Amir Sayed and Diljith T S, and their team mate Viswas Vijayaraj, with the latter the only driver to break Dark Don’s stranglehold on the podium with a second-place finish in the second race of the season-opening round.

The LGB Formula 4 field will also feature a slightly different look this weekend with MSport racer Ruhaan Alva, the reigning Novice Cup champion, set to miss the weekend as he is competing in the World Motorsport Games in Marseille.

The JK Tyre Novice Cup will see some of the country’s most promising rookie racers renew their battle. Early championship leader Kyle Kumaran (38 points), DTS Racing team mate Vinith Kumar (19 points) Hasten Performance racer Aadithya Parasuram (27 points) and MSport’s Dhruvh Goswami (21 points) are the favourites heading into the weekend.

The JK Tyre presents Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup could throw up some surprises if last month’s opening round is anything to go by. The category, which runs to the Pro-Am format, features a field of 25 riders. 

Last year’s defending champion Anish Damodara Shetty (20 points) and Allwin Xavier made a strong start to their campaign at last month’s season-opening round and are among the favourites this weekend. But they could face a challenger in the form of amateur racer Soorya PM, with Navaneeth Kumar, Ullas S Nanda, Sudheer Sudhakar, also expected to up the ante this weekend.

HSB