The final round of the Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship culminates at the Irungattukottai race track, Sriperumbudur
Racing improves the breed,” so said Soichiro Honda, the Japanese engineer and industrialist who established Honda Motor in 1948. Since those times, Honda has played an important role in motorsports, believing it to be the springboard for technological advancement. This year has been particularly good for the company in the field of motorsports, with Repsol Honda—the official factory team of Repsol and the Honda Racing Corporation—winning the MotoGP World Championship. In fact, Marc Marquez of the Repsol Honda team became the youngest to win the title.
In India, the company’s arm, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), has been taking part in the Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship (INMRC) and also conducting the Honda One Make race since 2008.
Now, INMRC is a national championship for two-wheeler racing and is approved by the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India. The technical sponsors for the championship are HMSI, India Yamaha Motor, and TVS Motor. The INMRC 2013 consisted of five rounds that took place at the three fully-functional race tracks India has—Kari Motor Speedway (Coimbatore), Irungattukottai Race Track (Sriperumbudur), and Buddh International Circuit (Greater Noida). From December 13-15, the final round of INMRC took place at Irungattukottai.
Among the major races that took place were the YZF R15 novice & open categories; the CBR 150cc open category and CBF Stunner novice category; and the Apache RTR 180 novice & open categories. Coming to the famous names, it was K Rajni who won the Honda MMSC One Make Championship race with the CBR 250R bike, while Dinesh Kumar finished in second place with A Prabhu in third. In fact, the CBR 250R category was under a Team Championship and Honda leased 16 CBR 250R performance bikes to teams registered at FMSCI.
Prabhu Nagaraj, general manager, customer service, HMSI, said, “For six years, Honda has been successfully promoting motorsports in India. We are delighted to see the overwhelming response to Honda One Make Race 2013 by both participants and enthusiasts. With the CBR 250R under Team Championship, Honda will continue to provide global exposure and first-hand racing experience to biking enthusiasts.”
On its website, TVS Motor claims that racing can do wonders for the company as it has been proved that racing helps in both product development and building a long-term image of the company. HMSI claims that, globally, technologies from the track are, in various ways, incorporated in everyday vehicles. They are tested, refined and proven under the trying conditions in the races, and then adapted in the vehicles, so that even two-wheelers like Activa and Dio can benefit from such technologies. Racing, indeed, has a better future in India, just that we need more participants in events such as the INMRC.
