Chennai, Sep 7: High humidity and a threat of rain greeted the country's top riders ahead of this weekend's third round of the MMSC-Sidvin FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship here this weekend.
Much of the interest will be focused on races in the 165cc Open Group B and C classes that have witnessed fierce competition in the previous two rounds.
Harry Sylevester of TVS Racing (32 points) is the current championship leader in Group
B and Shyam Shankar of Moto-Rev India (28) heads Group C, but not by much. Close on Sylvester's heels is team-mate K. Jagan on 30 while Shankar has to keep a sharp eye on Sumit Lucas Toppo of Performance Racing who 26 points to his credit.
Sylvester, with one win and two second-place finishes will have his task cut out to keep Jagan, winner of three previous races, at bay and it is likely that the duo would be at the front in the double-header this weekend.
Shankar and Toppo have two races apiece, but the former has one second place finish and the latter, was third in one of the four races. Both failed to score any points in one outing.
The story is vastly different in the showpiece Group A class (Superbikes, 600cc) where
Krishnan Rajini of Moto-Rev India is clearly the dominant figure with a clean sweep of four victories in as many outings this season. It will take a lot to stop the veteran from extending his domination this weekend.
In Group D (165cc, Novice), local challenger Arun Muthukrishnan heads the leaderboard with 31 points following his two wins in the previous round while Sandesh P. (Performance Racing) from Bangalore (27 points) and Moto-Rev's R. Ramesh Kumar (26), who started the season well with two wins in the first round, will be fancying their chances.
Kamlesh Thakur (Sparks Racing) is comfortably ahead in the Group D (135cc, Novice) after winning all the four races thus far, but has two TVS Racing riders Abdul Wahab (27) and KY. Ahmed (22) breathing down his neck.
Running concurrently with the National championship will be three One-Make series
involving Yamaha, Honda and TVS, though it will not count towards the championship.
Should it rain over the weekend, as locals expect, then it will certainly add spice to the proceedings.
