Abdul Tanveer triumphs at Rally of Chikmagalur; Sarath Mohan tops among privateers in Overall 6th

By David Bodapati

Chikkamagaluru, 15 May 2022: Defending champion Abdul Wahid Tanveer of Petronas TVS Racing team emerged victorious to open his title defence in style while three other riders, Imran Pasha, Sarath Mohan and Tanika Shanbagh hogged the limelight with stellar performance, in the first round of the MRF MoGrip fmsci National Rally Championship – 2W 2022, popularly known as INRC for 2-wheelers, held at the ‘Coffee Land’ here on Sunday.

TVS rider Imran Pasha, astride a humble TVS Apache RTR 200, proved that the bike can roar like a tiger if the rider calls the shots. Pasha punched above his weight skilfully negotiating the tricky corners with controlled aggression, and finished a creditable fifth in the overall standings beating many other bikes in the higher classes.

Tanveer beat his teammate Samuel Jacob by more than a minute. Samuel lost about 18 seconds in SS3 and 15 seconds in SS7, that pushed him back but he had the consolation of beating the champion today in two stages, SS2 and SS6, even if only by a small margin. The 2019 National champion Rajendra hit a tree in the very first stage and later managed to cut the deficit but missed the podium. “It is a great feeling to sit on the new bike. It is very powerful and the I am very happy with the going. I lost some time after the fall in SS3 but I will come back stronger next Sunday,” said Samuel.

Sarath Mohan, top Privateer

Likewise, Sarath Mohan was the man of the moment. Riding with a mission, astride a Husqvarna FE450, he took the Overall honours as the top Privateer on Sunday. It was a stunning result for the Kerala stalwart, who overcame a life-threatening injury, suffered at the very same event last year is SS5. Last year, chasing in the shadows, he missed a hidden rock and was hurt, badly damaging his liver, just before the flying finish of  SS5 and later was forced to withdraw from the remaining rounds. He took over three months to complete the treatment and rehab and thus took the first round easy testing himself and his bike. He also won his class comfortably beating his nearest rival and state-mate Sinan Francis by nearly two minutes in the Super Bike Expert Group A Class 1A. “I had a new machine and the tyres are also new. Coming back from injury I did not want to stress myself and so managed the pace judiciously. Basically, I was testing my bike and with upgrades coming for next Sunday, I am looking forward to Mangalore. We have good competition but I am confident,” said Sarath Mohan from Mallapuram, who missed the title narrowly last year after taking three wins in the first three rounds.

Amidst all this, there is one lady who was missing from the line-up in the Ladies class. The young lady from Satara, Tanika Shanbagh, decided to skip the ladies tag and promoted herself to Group A SuperBike Expert Class 1A, and just missed a podium but kept the ‘Women in Motorsport’ flag flying. Competing with men on equal footing, astride a Husqvarna TE350, Tanika came fourth in her class and 15th overall among 76 bikes, missing the podium by about 24.5 seconds, quite an achievement on debut in this class. A versatile rider who takes part in Supercross and Sprint Nationals, she recovered from an injury and is hoping to hone her skills abroad soon. “I am planning to take part in international rallies. So I wanted to gain some experience on the bike,” said the Satara rider.

Set amidst the picturesque private coffee estates on closed dirt roads, the eight Special Stages were run on Sunday and the Service Park, on the foothills of Sahayadri mountain ranges, presented a refreshing start to the year with mist-filled mountains forming a pleasant background that was truly a “Seven-th Heaven”. Organised professionally by the Motor Sports Club of Chikmagalur (MSCC) with trained marshals and experienced officials taking care of the safety aspects and running of the event, promoted by GodSpeed Racing, the two-wheeler Rally went on well without a hitch. The successful first round begins the 2w Rally Nationals, which is one of the prime competitions among the 13 fmsci Nationals for different motorsports disciplines. The calendar with nine National Championship titles at stake has six rounds and the next round is in Mangaluru on May 22.

Of the 93 entries, 88 bikes took the start after the scrutiny, and 76 finished the course of about 56-km of Special Stages. The two physical stages were run four times each in the same direction on the dirt roads amidst the coffee estates of Vasanthacool and Thippanahalli. The Prize Distribution (PD) was held at around 6.45 pm as it took time to add the road penalties, which did not affect any of the top rankings.

Coming back to Sunday’s action in other classes, Kottayam’s Chalass K Bose had a facile win in Class 2 Super Sport 130 Group B beating Bengaluru’s Anoop Manjappa by 1min 44 seconds. Local rider Dilip Raj managed to finish the rally and completed the podium in third while three other riders in the class suffered DNF (Did not finish).

Another local rider Francis PV won the Super Sport 165cc Group B ahead of Sasi Kumar of Coimbatore and Shabuddin Sayad of Goa. In the Super Sport upto 260cc  class, Sachin D came second in the class and seventh overall. Adnaan Ahmed of Mangaluru was third in the class and 9th overall.

The current champion in Super Sport upto 550cc class, Mohammed Zaheer who shifted to upto 400cc class won the class astride a KTM Adventure and stalwart of 2-wheeler rallying Venu Ramesh Kumar achieved one more podium in his chequered career. The experienced rider, who is an epitome of fitness logged in more points than Vinit Sharma, whose road penalty pushed him down to third. Another experienced rider Naresh VS won his class on a Royal Enfield Himalayan. Two Kochi riders Arun Joy and Jeemon Anthony finished in that order behind him.

The only World champion in Indian motorsports, Aishwarya Pissay, astride a brand new RTR 200 began her quest for sixth consecutive National Rally title on a winning note as she faced no challenge from the seven other ladies, among whom Apoorva of Mangaluru proved the best among the rest with talented Fazeela from Ernakulam taking third. Both of them are on a Hero Impulse.

While Aishwarya’s win is taken for granted, second-placed Apoorva, 25 years, was thrilled with her ride and the podium. “I first took part in Sprint, which is a miniature version of the Rally. National Rally is a completely different experience. In 2019, I made my motorsports debut in Sprint Nationals. It went pretty well and I got trophies home in all the rounds. Due to COVID and lack of enough funds I took a break for two years, and stepped up into INRC exactly six months back in Round 3 at Puttur and it was a deadly round. But I managed to finish and was placed 4th in the ladies category. Later, I got a third place in both the rounds I took part. I worked extremely hard for three months, to get my bike fixed and here I am taking a 2nd place. I am so happy and hope to do much better in the coming round.” Apoorva, a mechanical engineer supported by Motul, was on a Hero Impulse tuned by Yogish of Team KAT Racing.

Defending champion Karthik Naidu of TVS crashed out, but Shamim Khan, the new TVS recruit kept the TVS record intact in the Scooter class riding a TVS NTorq and Bengaluru’s experienced Subrahmanya took the second ahead of Pinkesh Thakkar from Bhopal, who put Aprilia on the podium.

Round 1 Results (Provisional):

Class 1: Super Bike Pro-Expert Group A:

1.Abdul Waheed Tanveer, Bengaluru (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 450) 00:53:43.222;

2. Samuel Jacob, Udupi (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 450) 00:54:44.301;

3. R Nataraj, Bengaluru (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 450) 00:55: 10.124;

4. Rajendra RE, Shivamogga (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 450) 00:55:58.757;

5. Yuva Kumar, Bengaluru (Hero MotoSport – Hero Xpulse) 00: 59:41.569.

Class 1A: Super Bike Expert Group A:

1. Sarath Mohan, Mallapuram (Privateer – Husqvarna FE450) 00:59:02.054;

2. Francis Sinan, Kochi (Pvt. – KTM 450EXCF) 1:00:56.457;

3. Asad Khan, Chikkamagaluru (Pvt. – TVS Apache RTR 180) 01:02:39.042;

4. Tanika Shanbagh, Satara, (Pvt. – Husqvarna TE 350) 01:03:03.558;

5. Jatin Jain, Nagpur, (Pvt. – KTM 450EXCF) 1:03:41.640;

6. T Vijay Kumar, Bengaluru (Pvt. – Yamaha WR250) 1:11:44.321.

Class 2: Super Sport 130 Group B:

1. Chalass K Bose, Kottayam, (Pvt. Honda Stunner) 01:07:46.442;

2. Anoop Manjappa, Bengaluru (Pvt. Honda Stunner) 01:09:30.363;

3. Dilip Raj, Chikkamagaluru (Honda 130) 01:13:03.470;

(Vinoth Kumar, Raj Baharath DNF in SS1; Hemanth Gowda DNF in SS4).

Class 3: Super Sport 165 Group B:

1. Francis PV, Chikkamagaluru (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:02:56.041;

2. Sasi Kumar K, Coimbatore (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:03:13.749;

3. Shabuddin Sayed, Goa (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:05:48.865;

4. Goutham Rao, Bengaluru, (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:06:38.803;

5. Akhil Joy, Kochi (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:06:57.347;

(15 out of 17 riders finished the rally; Varun Kumar DNF in SS7; Rakesh Kumar DNF in SS6).

Class 4: Super Sport 260 Group B:

1. Imran Pasha, Mysore (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 200) 00:57:01.920;

2.  Sachin D, Bengaluru (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 200) 00:59:20.859;

3. Adnaan Ahamed, Mangaluru (Pvt. -Hero Xpulse) 01:00:07.333;

4. Karan Kumar M, Coimbatore (Pvt. – Hero Xpulse) 01:00:10.553;

5. Sathyaraj Arumugam, Bengaluru (Hero MotoSport – Hero Xpulse) 01:01:37.069.

(All 13 riders in class 4 completed the Rally)

Class 5: Super Sport 400 Group B:

1. Mohammed Zaheer, Bengaluru (Pvt. KTM Adventure) 01:04:32.605;

2. Venu Ramesh Kumar, Coimbatore (Pvt. KTM Duke 390) 01:07:19.650;

3. Vinit Sharma, Indore (Pvt. KTM Duke 390) 01:07:23.407 (including 1:10sec Road Penalty);

4. Hansraj Saikia, Guwahati (Pvt. KTM Duke) 01:08:17.727;

5. Ashwin Ananta Raju, Bengaluru (Pvt. KTM Duke 390) 01:08:24.593 (including 1 min Road Penalty).

(six of seven riders finished Class 5; Defending champion Sajeesh Reghunathan did not take part)

Class 6: Super Sport 550 Group B:

1. Naresh VS, Bengaluru (Pvt. Royal Enfield Himalayan) 01:04:24.549;

2. Arun Joy, Kochi (Pvt. RE Himalayan) 01:04:42.497;

3. Jeemon Anthony, Kochi (Pvt. RE Himalayan) 01: 05: 53.568;

4. Sharath Kumar Sathyanarayan, Bengaluru (Pvt. RE Himalayan) 01: 06: 05.058;

5. Abhijeet Sarkar, Bengaluru (Pvt. RE Himalayan) 01:15:17.745;

6. Vijay Kumar M, Chikkamagaluru (Pvt. RE Bullet) 01:20:04.794.

(All six finished the rally; Defending champ Mohammed Zaheer shifted to Class 5)

Class 7: Ladies Class Group B:

1. Aishwarya Pissay, Bengaluru (Petronas TVS Racing – Apache RTR 200) 01:07:23.684;

2. Apoorva B, Mangaluru (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:14:04.632;

3. Fazeela U, Ernakulam (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:14:22.040;

4. Ryhana Bee, Chennai (Pvt. Hero Impulse) 01:14:28.240;

5. Sameera Dahiya, Bengaluru (Pvt. Hero Xpulse 200) 01:26:07.110;

(Seven ladies out of eight completed the rally; Jeena Joy DNF in SS1; Tanika took part in Class 1A)

Class 8: S0 to S3 Scooter 210cc Group B:

1. Shamim Khan, Bengaluru (Petronas TVS Racing – TVS NTorq) 01:05:45.013;

2. Subramanya T, Bengaluru (Pvt. – TVS NTorq) 01:07:18.269;

3. Pinkesh Thakkar, Bhopal, (Aprilia JB Racing -Aprilia SR150) 01: 07:46.080;

4. Goutham N, Bengaluru (Pvt. – TVS NTorq) 01:11:25.922;

5. Venkatesh Shetty, Mumbai (Pvt. – Aprilia SR150) 01: 13:07.809.

(Six out of 10 riders completed the rally; Defending champ Karthik Naidu and Ninganna M DNF in SS1; Elango pulled out SS7 and Asif Sayed Ali DNF in SS8)

Disclosure: This motorsports reporter, David Bodapati, has been provided accommodation by the organisers, the Motor Sports Club of Chikmagalur.

The comments about the organisation are personal but based on different indicators developed by Motorsports Journalists Federation of India for assessing organisational capacity like basic amenities for riders, trained marshals and experience of officials, timing equipment and management, safety measures, etc.

Edited on 18May2022 correcting the Overall placing in the headline.