ROAD TO TRACK

I have been a motorsport fan most of my life. The thrill of speed, the adrenaline rush, and the sense of competition have always attracted me to the sport.

- AKAASH BHADRA

However, I have always had the experience of racing from behind a screen. I was a Motorsport Correspondent before, yet I had never tasted the track. But all that changed this month.

My whole life turned upside down. A whole other appreciation ignited inside me and I finally put my money where the mouth is as a motorcycle journalist; A P3 finish in my first ever race.

So to begin with, let me talk about what I was racing with. It was an Apache RTR 200. Most of it was stock apart from the tyres and the free-flow exhaust on it (and I guess the sprocket?). I mean, I was never a fan of that motorcycle if I being honest, but it was the motorcycle that I had to build a relationship with. There wasn't much difference apart from the stickering, and the speedometer was also disconnected for some reason. Who knows why... But this made it ever so more difficult to understand how fast I was on the track.

The day started with a practice session that lasted for 30 minutes. This was my first true experience of the track, and I let it rip. I am quite aggressive when it comes to exploration of the limits of the motorcycle. I mean how else will you learn? So, I went out gunning in the straights and braking really late into turns to see how much speed I could carry in them. The more I braked late, the more I trusted the front end of the motorcycle.