THE ONE MAKE CHAMPIONSHIP

Once you’ve got to grips on how to conduct yourself on track, it’s time to pit yourself against likeminded enthusiasts

- Alameen Merchant

NOW THAT YOU HAVE mastered the techniques and done the paperwork, it’s time to act on all you've envisioned. And TVS Racing, apart from running a racing programme, gives us mere mortals a chance to get on board.

Now, since I had already clocked serious miles on both the road as well as during track training programmes, entering a race was the next logical step.

But before I can tell you how my experiences on my first race weekend (the TVS RTR 200 One Make Championship) or my subsequent experience (the TVS One Make RR 310 Open championship) went, you’ll need a brief on how a race weekend goes. The three-day event consists of a practice session on Friday (to allow riders to come to terms with the track and the bike), a qualifying round on Saturday (to determine the sequence of riders on the starting grid), and the final race (or races) on Sunday.

Initial preparations

Before going out on the track, I went over its layout, trying to figure out its USP like the track surface, or idiosyncrasies like the weather and humidity at that time of the year. That done, I got inputs from more experienced racers, to glean whatever I could about going faster around the track in a competitive setting, something I hadn’t needed to do at a training programme. Lastly, I read up on the bike I would be racing.

Next came the track walk. So, reaching the venue early on Friday, I took a stroll along the track, recalling my ‘lines’, keeping a keen eye for anything I could perceive as "new." All these are invaluable reference points to keep the racer’s mind focussed during the race. Lastly I made a note of 'back-up points' that I could use, to make continuous small corrections around my opponents.