UPPED THE ANTE

Our man battles it out right from the time the lights go out till the chequered flag

- Janak Sorap

I was right on the tail of the rider in front of me at C3, and as soon as I crossed the apex, I got on the gas a moment earlier and a small twist more, hoping to make a pass on him. Little did I anticipate how quickly the RC390’s mill loves to rev up, causing its tail to break traction. With the rear suspension all bottomed and the rear stepping out and gripping back again, I was in for a perfect scenario to experience a high side, putting an end to my race weekend. Not what I had planned in the first few laps into the practice session of the inaugural KTM RC Cup Championship here at Madras International Circuit (MIC). Fortunately, I managed to control it and keep things on two wheels for the rest of the session.

Before I tell you how the rest of the weekend turned out, let me give you a quick low-down on KTM’s one-make championship. Open to only KTM owners, after conducting eight qualifying regional rounds in different cities, the top ten fastest riders from each city were present to compete further for the finale. That’s a total of 80 riders competing for top guns to claim the championship title. Now, it would be impossible to have the entire batch of 80 riders race at once on a track. So, to avoid that chaos, the riders had to go through Superpole qualifying, followed by a conventional qualifying session before the first of the three races for the race weekend.