| Report: MRF National Circuit Racing Championship, July 2014
My interest in motorsports is growing day by day and I really wanted to know more and what better way to do that than go to a racing championship?
I checked the FMSCI website, their calender said that there was one happening in Coimbatore the next weekend. Luckily I found a seat in the train from Thiruvananthapuram which departs at 1115, Thursday morning and reaches Coimbatore at 830 the same day. Started packing my things the day before, my camera and tripod were kept in a separate bag as I will be using them a lot. The train journey was pleasant, why would it not be? I was in Kerala and it was monsoons! Checked in a nearby hotel that night, I knew I will be needing a lot of rest as the next day was sure to be a big one. I did not know the directions to the track and this was first time I was coming to Coimbatore (passed through it during my South-India solo trip, but did not stay).
Day 1: I got up by 7 AM, freshened up and got dressed and left with my camerabag. After having yummy Vadas and sambar, I started to find directions to the track. I miss my Android phone now, it was so easy with the Google maps to find any place you wanted. (I switched to Blackberry couple of months ago to "try it out") I called the track office and he told the directions to the auto-guy. I had to make a small detour though, had to collect the passes for the race from the Toyota showroom there. The auto-guy did not really know the directions to the track too, he called up his friends and he found it. After reaching the track he realized he under-charged me, poor guy had guessed the distance wrong, it was 4-5 Kms more than what he expected. By the time i paid him the extra 50 rupees, my ears were over-loaded with the sound from those monstrous-looking Citys, Balenos and Esteems. Practice session had begun and all the drivers were making good use of the time allotted. This was the first time i came to watch any motorsport, it was quite over-whelming. Everything was organized very well, there were signs around the help with directions, a separate shed under which all tyres were kept, the pit-area filled with crazy cars and few people under the cars and few near the bonnet with their laptops in hand trying to tune the cars for their best performance, and a small canteen in the middle of no-where was kind of a boon. The practice session went on and I got some great pictures from it. Qualification was also held the same day. It was a good day. Got another auto it get back and i had to transfer all the images to the pen-drive i had because I have a one GB storage card! Because i have a very old camera, it accepts only CF cards, and its hard to get affordable bigger-capacity cards. Its enough to take 100 pictures in RAW, so every shot I take I have to think. That way it helps me too. Put my batteries on charge and slept away.
Day-2: It was race day and i did not want to be late. So, i got an auto again and left for the track. By the time i reached, the race had already begun, it was the Etios cup and i just missed a crash, but was there to see the broken car being towed away out of the track and the safety car was leading the pack. After few laps the sulfate car was out and everyone started revving their engines again. It was a lot of fun watching it and again got some nice shots in the process. During the lunch break i was having a look around and there was a stall with a video game, gran turismo, toyota had put up the stall. They had also put up all their latest models on display. The Etios, Liva, Altis, Hybrid-Camry and the Fortuner. The race started again, this time it was the sedans, screaming down the straights one couldn't keep their eyes off them. The last race was the Formula cars which was again great to watch, their ground-hugging stance, those wings and the engine sound just added to it. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay there the next day as i had some work back in TVM , I left that day night from Coimbatore and reached here by the next day morning.
Overall it was a great experience, Indian motorsport scenes are sure improving. Hope a lot of young people get exposed to this type of racing rather than street-racing and putting others lives at risk.
Now, let the pictures do the talking.
Cheers. | 
22nd July 2014, 15:19
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