Journos Face Off

Volkswagen Motorsport organised a race weekend just for us motoring scribes. Read on to know how it turned out

- Anosh Khumbatta

The Volkswagen ameo Cup is a professionally run racing programme that gives budding young racers the opportunity to compete on a national level and opens the doors to a career in motor sport. Volkswagen motorsport india have been running one-make championships for tin-top race cars since the introduction of the polo Cup in 2010. The series evolved into the Vento Cup in 2015, and, subsequently, the ameo Cup in 2017.

The race-ready ameo Cup car is powered by the Volkswagen group’s 1.8-litre, turbocharged, four-cylinder petrol engine that makes 205 ps and 320 nm of torque. The engine is mated to a paddle-shift-operated sequential gearbox from French transmission manufacturer, 3mo performance, that uses an electromagnetic actuator to execute lightning-fast shifts, and all the electrical signals from sensors throughout the car are fed through the moTec m142 race eCu and engine management software. I had the privilege of driving the car at the kari speedway in Coimbatore twice last year and, before the 2018 season got under way, Vw motorsport invited a bunch of us lucky journalists to Chennai’s mmRT circuit to experience what the drivers go through over the course of a race weekend.