INDIA in F1

Tag: INRRC

  • Ajgar Ali and Md Musthafa new TSD National champs: JK Tyre INRRC

    Ajgar Ali and Md Musthafa new TSD National champs: JK Tyre INRRC

    Darjeeling, 28 March 2022: Sk Ajgar Ali and navigator Md Musthafa were crowned the National champions winning the TSD Rally Championship which made a grand entry in its new avatar as JK Tyre Indian National Regulatory Run Championship (INRRC) 2021. The delayed 2021 Championship which is truly a National event that criss-crossed the country with 17 venues holding the regional rounds, the three-day grand finale produced vintage stuff that was organised by JustSportz MPL to get going the TSD Nationals, that is the gateway to bigger motorsports events for any speed enthusiast.

    The duo of Sk Aniruddha and Raj Kumar Mundra finished second, while the driver-navigator team of Subir Roy and Nirav Mehta came third in the Nationals. 

    The INRRC Ladies Cup was lifted by the Pune team of Sheena Sabharwal (driver) and Trupti Gupta (navigator) while the Gurgaon-Mumbai team of Jasmeet Kaur and Jyothi Iyengar came second. The third position in this category went to the mother-daughter pair of Nilasha and Ipsita Das from Kolkata.

    General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Sukhna-headquartered 33 Corps, Lieutenant General Tarun Kumar Aich and his wife Saswati Aich, 123 Mountain Brigade Commander Vikas Batra and his wife Pallavi Batra, former Darjeeling MLA Amar Singh Rai, Darjeeling Municipality chairman Ritesh Portel and JK’s Head of Training Ajoy Shah gave away the prizes. 

    Apart from the three winners of the JK INRRC 2021, trophies were also awarded to three winners of the INRRC Adventure category, Himalayan Drive 8 Ladies Cup and the winners of the six zonal qualifying rounds. 

    The first prize in the INRRC Adventure category was bagged by Jit Mitra and K Dinky Varghese while the second prize went to the team of Abhijit Singh and navigator Ibrahim Ali Shaikh. The third position was bagged by Nishan Choudhury and co-driver Chandrasish Roy. 

     JK Tyre Himalayan Drive 8 (HD8), which was the Grand Finale of INRRC 2021 started from Siliguri on March 24 and culminated in Darjeeling in the evening of March 26. A total of 24 teams, including seven all-ladies team, took part in this event. 

    Several big names in this format of motorsports locked horns in the bid for the coveted crown. The 24 teams had reached the finals after going through gruelling qualifying rounds at the six zonal levels in Northeast, East, North, West, Central and South India. 

    The competitors had to navigate through some very tough terrains, including dirt tracks, river beds and hilly terrain. The river beds on the first two legs of the rally proved to be especially challenging with many vehicles getting bogged down in the sand, gravel and rocks leading to seeking assistance of the recovery team to be pulled out. 

  • Anil Abbas and Sini win Mangaluru RRPM TSD event

    Anil Abbas and Sini win Mangaluru RRPM TSD event

    Mangaluru, 26 Dec 2021: RRPM Adventure Regularity Run, an Open event TSD rally sponsored by JK Tyre concluded here with local couple Anil Abbas and Sini Anil bagging the Overall Victory on Sunday. The event is also supported by AJ Hospital and Research Centre.

    Indian Motor Sports Club (IMSC), founded by celebrated navigator Musa Sherif and INRC rally co-driver Ashwin Naik, two decades back, handled the event meticulously. IMSC ran the event for Ramakrishna Race Performance Management (RRPM) of Kolkata in the coastal city of Mangaluru.

    Anil Abbas and his wife Sini completed the Time, Speed, Distance rally clocking a penalty time of 00:00:49 beating another local pair Dr Vikram Jain and navigator, a champion co-driver Shruptha Padival, a regular for Deam Mascarenhas in INRC (Dean did not take part in this TSD event). Vikram logged a penalty of 55, as they took 6 seconds more to complete the undisclosed course of the rally using the Road Book and maintaining the required slow speeds consistently. Anoop and Devakanth GM, missed the second place on the podium, by a narrow margin of one second, and came a creditable third.

    TSD specialist Lalitha Gowda (right) with a new driver in Manjula Gowda receiving the trophy from IMSC’s Mrs Ramya Ashwin.

    Akhil Nayak and Nausha KM came fourth ahead of Dr Raghavendra Pidamale and Muralidhara Rao in fifth. Popular pair of Manjula Gowda and Lalitha Naik, could only finish sixth. Another JK Tyre lady driver, a INRC regular, Athira Murali, a gifted AutoVlogger from Kerala, combined with Saumya PN, and it was a top-10 finish for the only all-ladies team. The Speed Demon from Kottayam must have found the pace too slow for her liking. TSD drivers get a speed chart according to which the navigators need to calculate the Time, Speed, Distance to match the average speeds in different sections, that are usually less than the normal road speeds for general traffic in that area. Navigators with the help of odometres and special devices calculate and follow the ‘tulip’, a road book with directions prepared by the Route Setter.

    Athira Murali (2nd from right) and Saumya (right), the all-ladies team at Mangaluru.

    IMSC are experts in Route survey, Time Control rallies, preparing Marshals, and doing Paper work for a rally, especially in preparing Supplementary Regulations. “We have organised many rallies in Karnataka, we are associated with many INRC events and other biggies like The Desert Storm, The Hornbill Rally of Nagaland, the Rally of Arunachal, and other events all over North-East region,” said Musa Sherif, who has completed 298 rallies till now as a motorsports athlete. Organisers of motor sports events look for Clubs like IMSC to run events professionally in India.

  • JK Tyre partners with FMSCI to breathe life into TSD rallies again

    JK Tyre partners with FMSCI to breathe life into TSD rallies again

    New Delhi, 29 Sept, 2021: JK Tyre, India’s leading tyre manufacturer and pioneer of motorsports in India, has launched JK Tyre FMSCI Indian National Regularity Run Championship, the first-of-its-kind motorsport Nationals that is expected to provide a platform for driving enthusiasts to start their journey into professional rallying.

    Ever since the Company got involved in Motorsports, the sole purpose has been to promote, nurture and provide opportunities from grassroots level to the highest echelons of motorsport to enthusiasts. The company has also invested in putting together a step by step motorsport program for budding racers who are interested in taking up motorsport as a career. JK Tyre introduced karting in India that is now the breeding ground for professional racing. Similarly, the JK Tyre FMSCI Indian National Regularity Run Championship will provide the necessary platform for entry into professional rallying.

    Run under the aegis of Federation of Motorsport Clubs of India (FMSCI), and backed by JK Tyre the Indian National Regularity Run will be held across 17 cities in the country making it one of the most awaited National Championship of the year with biggest geographical spread.

    Speaking on the occasion Sanjay Sharma, Head-Motorsport, JK Tyre said: “Promoting motorsports at the grass-root level in India has always been a key priority for JK Tyre. Our idea endeavors to create an eco-system and provide opportunities to motorsport buffs, as always. By launching the JK Tyre FMSCI India National Regularity Run National Championship, we hope to nurture the new generation of rally enthusiasts to get into professional rallying. Our activities and initiatives in the past few years have further strengthened our leadership position in Indian National Rally Championship and we continue our commitment towards building more professional rally drivers.”

    Regularity Run is a form of TSD rally, usually conducted on public roads, both clean tarmac and flat dirt tracks which need precise time and average speed on various segments of pre-defined but undisclosed route. Each team comprises of a driver and a navigator will start the run at a fixed interval creating a field that is spread along the route with undisclosed Time Controls. The team with minimum time penalties will win. INRRC will have a Championship Class that will see National champions for 2021, one Navigator, a Driver and the team.

    The zonal qualifiers will start on October 1, with the Rally of Bangalore, the first of the five South Zone events while Rally of Chamba, will kick start the other zonal rounds. Another five rounds are scheduled in the East, three in the West and one Central round would complement the North Zone event. The first South Zone round will be flagged off at 8 am at Kanteerava Stadium, in the busy downtown area and travel to the heritage Hampi city in Vijayanagar district. A 10-km run of over 40 vintage cars in the heart of the city are expected to enthrall and popularise the sport among the youngsters.

    The final round of INRRC will be the JK Tyre Tri Nation Himalayan Drive in Siliguri which is the biggest motorsport event in Eastern India that traverses through the picturesque regions of Darjeeling, Sikkim, crossing Nepal and culminating at the enigmatic kingdom of Bhutan.

    About JK Tyre Motorsport:

    JK Tyre has been closely associated with the world of motorsports for almost three decades back. The company laid down a long term plan to popularise and promote the sport in the country. Its first target was to change the notion that this was a sport for the elite. So it packaged and redesigned it in a spectator-friendly way, drawing the masses to the sport.

    The company then endeavored to spot, nurture and sharpen the drivers to turn them into world champions. With this goal in mind, we conceptualized the JK Tyre National Racing Champion in 1997. Our efforts started paying dividends in just a few years’ time, with the likes of Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok going all the way to the F1 rung, the highest level of single-seat racing in the world. Since then, a number of stars emerged, including Armaan Ebrahim, the Maini brothers (Kush and Arjun), Anindith Reddy Konda, amongst many others. 

    Before all this, JK Tyre had a successful stint in rallying too, conquering the scene in the early 90s. At the same time, gradually, we moved on to various disciplines, including cross-country rallying and off-roading, leaving a mark in each of them with their unique and innovative ways.  

    JK Tyre Motorsports is also very proud of the role it has played in bringing women into motorsports in a big way. Apart from encouraging them to get into the sport through karting as kids, we also gave them opportunities in various national championships. Last year was particularly rewarding for us as an All-Women Racing team was introduced for the first time in the LGB 4 category. In addition, the company also undertook various other initiatives to encourage them to try motorsports, even if for fun to begin with.  

    To supplement JK Tyre’s entry into the two-wheeler market, the JKNRC hosted the Suzuki Gixxer Cup and the Red Bull Road to Rookies Cup categories and saw enthusiastic participation from across the country.

    Today, the company is synonymous with motorsports, and even more so with racing, creating a lot of goodwill for the brand. Right from budding racers to accomplished drivers in the country, everybody owes their rise and success to JK Tyre.