DIRT MANIA

A promising. season one of Ceat Indian Supercross Racing League comes to a thrilling end

- RITESH PATIL

Here is a quick fact - over 17,000 enthusiasts attended the 250cc Rodil Trophy Stadium Motocross World Championship race held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Pune back in 1988. This is quite commendable for a sport that is not cricket. Unfortunately, the sport’s popularity dwindled over the years. Supercross and motorsports seem to be back on track to regain their popularity with the Indian Supercross Racing League which just concluded an action-packed season of racing.

The first season of the Ceat ISRL saw six franchises - BigRock Motorsports owned by CS Santosh, the first Indian to compete in the Dakar Rally and multiple- time national supercross champion, N Gautam, a sports entrepreneur and Uday Shankar, Director of BigRock Dirtpark, BB Racing owned by Atul Chordia, the Chairman of Pune-based Panchshil Realty, Reise MotoSports owned by Mahansaria Group’s Reise Moto brand, Gujarat Trailblazers led by Gaurav Gill, 3-time Asia-Pacific Rally Champion, and Dhrumil Patel, serial entrepreneur, Mohite’s Racing run by Abhishek Mohite, a passionate motorsports enthusiast who also leads the Mohite Group and finally SG Speed Racers led by Sanjay Gupta, CMD, APL Apollo Group.

The teams competed across four professional categories — 450cc International, 250cc International, 250cc India-Asia mix and All Stars, which saw the 450cc and 250cc riders competing together. We also had the 85cc demo-class race where competitors were aged between 11 to 14 years.