Double & Nothing

The home round of Asia Road Racing Championship brought mixed fortunes for India’s only participating team.

- Shivank Bhatt

The Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC) series is unarguably the most popular two-wheel racing spectacle in the continent. This year it returned to Chennai for the fourth round, and suffice it to say, it gave local fans enough reasons to cheer. Why? Because India’s only contesting team in the event scored their first-ever double podium on their home turf!

From India’s perspective, the fourth round of the series carried a lot more significance this year. You see, from 2018 onwards, Honda two-wheeler India decided to participate in ARRC as a solo team. Dubbed the Idemitsu Honda Racing India, the team is contesting in AP250 (Asian Production 250) and SS600 (Supersports 600) categories. In the AP250 class, the team endorses two Indian riders – Rajiv Sethu and Anish Shetty – while in the SS600 series, it’s Taiga Hada (Japan) who represents the home-grown team. In the AP250 class, both Indian riders use race-spec Honda CBR250RR motorcycles. However, these aren’t the single-cylinder one-make CBR250R cup bikes that you usually see in races in India. In fact, these are twin-cylinder race bikes based on the CBR250RR that’s sold in global markets.