[blahman]

The beginning

I got into Motorsports because of my uncle Mr Shivu Shivappa, a veteran rally navigator. As kids, my cousins and I always used to awe at trophies at his place he had won which were as big as us. Fast forward a decade later he asks us if we (my cousins & I) were interested in marshalling in a TSD (Time-Speed-Distance) rally. It was organized by Karnataka MotorSports Club (KMSC) and it was called the Green Run. We were given Time Cards to note down the exact time and placed at Checkpoints which were bloody scenic.

This thread here by fellow team-bhp member Sudev has brilliantly explained this format of rallying:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...-rallying.html

I guess we were around 21 or something then, haven’t got the slightest clue about what to do. We were briefed thoroughly by the others, yet we were freaking out when the first few drivers came into our TC. I remember the drivers sensing our nervousness and being accommodative of us (This is very rare since every second lost will be a huge pain for the navigator to recalculate the time to take to reach the next TC). We eventually got a hold of it in the next few TSDs, I loved the TSD format for the routes. It was insane! Felt like trekking trails rather than a trail for cars at a few parts of the route. It was scenic, it was something new for us and we loved it. The best part was meeting all the seasoned rally drivers and riders to whom we were introduced to by our uncle. Never before had we met such relaxed, easy going and fun individuals at that age. Brilliant set of people even to this very day!

So TSD rallies ran it’s course and it was time for the KMSC biggie, the 40th K1000 rally! This was completely different ball game. It was buzzing with loud exhausts, people scampering everywhere to get things set perfectly for the stages and at the service park. Its no joke organizing a rally event of that size, we were completely blown away by it and extremely excited to be a part of all this chaos. I always expected the drivers to act all high & mighty (I still don’t know why I was expecting them to be), but they were the jolliest of the lot. Always had a smile on their faces and were always happy to talk about their cars. Here’s the link to the thread I wrote back in 2014:

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ly-2014-a.html


The K1000 video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smfQBslXzc8

Here are a few pictures of my marshalling days. Couldn’t find the good ones, apologies!
TSD recce:






During K1000



This is my favorite shot of the Civic. Shot by a friend with his drone during the k1000 2 wheeler rally



My cousin and I with the mad man Mr Lohit Urs’ Evo. One of the most humble and talented competitors I’ve come across!



My cousin at our TC during the K1000 two wheeler rally





We were all hungover from the rally excitement for the next week. 2015 happened another brilliant year of TSDs and the K1000. Marshalling in the service park, in the stages and also hovering around with the back end (Back-bone tbh) team gave us all a great insight into what really happens in a rally.

Then the Civic project happened, took me almost 2 years to get it the way I wanted it to be. Here’s the endless thread I made with it:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...nda-civic.html

I had no plans in competing in any kind of motorsport with the car when I was getting it done to be honest. I just wanted a brilliant beast to drive on the streets with what money I felt was appropriate to spend on a hobby at my age then. I dropped it off at Race Concepts and boy did Joel deliver! Forget driving it around, every time I write about it or even talk about it to people, there’s that involuntary grin that appears shamelessly.

ILRC Jan 2016


Around December 2015, I’m Facebooking away to glory in the office and I come across an event post talking about an upcoming drag. I was pretty surprised to see it since it was long since any type of quarter mile race was held in Bangalore and this was to take place in a few weeks time in Jan 2016. I spoke to Joel and he briefed me about it. He asked me if I wanted to drive, I did want to but there was no way I could convince my folks for it. So we decided we put the car in for a run and that Joel would drive it. I remember tanking up on Speed 93 a few days before the event because I was an illiterate to fuel talk. We decided to run Speed 97 which meant we would have to pump out the existing Speed 93 out of the tank. To make matters worse, Speed 97 is available only in a handful of petrol pumps across the city. I ended up going to the bunk near brigade road and bought 20L of Speed 97.



On to the day of the event, the ILRC drag took place on a closed section of the NICE road. Honestly I didn’t know what to expect since this was the first drag event I would be attending. It was sunny as hell but the lineup of cars made due for it. Lot of familiar faces around from the rally and KMSC. It was fun to sum it up! We took out the seats from my car and if I remember correctly we swapped my 17ers for a 15 with slicks. The run looked good but I never could get the run time from the organizer. The timings weren’t put up anywhere after the event probably because of the bike event going south the next week. But it’s never easy to run an event even after months of prep. The silver lining of the event was Joel’s city which ran a 12.5 second quarter mile. I think he did around 4 runs in different categories, it was hilarious to watch him leave every other car behind in the dust!

Here is a video of the event and a few pictures as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Mp...ature=youtu.be

Some peptalk by Joel before our runs



Weight reduction Yo!



Race Concept’s shining ITC horse driven by Joel

[blahman]

Race Concept’s Flagship cars! The turbo honda city in the front and the Naturally aspirated ITC car at the back:





Tune-O-Tronics 530d. It was freaking fast





Tune-O-Tronic’s Laura 2.0 TDI. It’s a regular at drag events





Aditya’s Esteem vs Race Concept’s ITC NA City

[blahman]

One of the Team Thrust Cars:


A NOS powered Zen vs Race Concept’s Turbo Honda City:



Drag Spec Turbo Honda’s lined up at the start line:



Sugan’s Zen Carbon. Also a regular at the Bangalore drags





Another Zen at the event





VROOM April 2016

After attending the ILRC drag event, I really wanted in on the action. Fast forward a couple of months and the Jakkur drag (Vroom 2016) was announced. I quickly signed up for it. The event was to take place over three days, Friday would be scrutiny, Saturday would be Indian Bikes and Sunday would be Super Bikes followed by cars. I landed up at the venue on Friday for scrutiny only to learn that I needed a bond paper for the indemnity form. I had no clue about it since I hadn’t gone through the SR. Adding to my misery, it was a government holiday (Ugadi) and the government offices would be closed. I was freaking out when I met a fellow participant Zach who was driving his black Laura TSI for the event. We both were in the same boat without the stamp paper and now that I look back, the whole process of getting the stamp paper was hilarious. He pulled some strings and managed to get our stamp papers. We were all set to drive on Sunday!

Few pics from the day:

My Turbo Civic



A BMW s1000rr, Audi RS7, yellow Busa, a mini cooper, the motormind r8 and a toyota supra

[blahman]

The venue was packed on race day! Lots of people, lots of food (various food stalls and food trucks), music and what not. Overall, the organisers did a good job of putting this event together. I remember being extremely nervous before my run. The best part about such events is the friends around you. All the other guys who had got their cars built by Joel were there chatting with each other, wailing away time until each of our runs came up. I met so many likeminded people in the Jakkur event and most of them I regularly keep in touch with even now. I had no clue on how to launch the car in a drag. Freaking out waiting for my run, Varun Anekar comes along. This bugger is a brilliant driver, I had met him earlier in an Autocross event through Joel. He’s a regular on ITC and National Go Kart races. He tells me to find the sweet spot at around 4k RPM and hold the clutch at the point when you feel it to move and pull up the hand-brake. When the lights go green handbrakes off and let all hell loose he said. So there I was waiting for the lights to go green, freaking out silently in the safety of my helmet. I kid you not, my hands were kind of trembling before I got into the car to line up (It’s funny now that I look back and think about why I was freaking out that much). And before you know it, the three yellows on the Christmas tree I was waiting for disappeared. Pushed the hand brake down and launched! Even to this day I hardly remember a few moments of what happened during those 15 seconds, it was pure muscle memory. I saw the last cone and gradually slowed down. One hell of a day it was! We were all keenly waiting for Supercars to run, as this was the first event where supercar owners decided to give it a go. A Porsche, Audi R8, Audi RS7, a Toyota Supra and a couple of other cars. The highlights of the event for me were easily the Superbike engined Reva built my Mr Prathap Jayaram and Joel’s City Vs the R8. Words cannot describe how the crowd went mad after their run. My mouth was wide open when I saw Joel cross the finish line before the R8.

Here’s a video of that race that was shot by a friend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxzjTNve7sU

And an in car video of the same race:

https://youtu.be/QlAUe6Svozk?t=20s

By the end of the event Joel’s Turbo Honda city had clocked the fastest time of the event for Indian cars and the red Audi RS7 tuned by Racetech clocked the fastest time for foreign cars.

Here’s a nice video of the event shot and compiled by Vipin Maben:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_aWKdvRnsg

Video of my run. I did a 15.7 second run and Joel did a 15.3 second run in my car.

https://youtu.be/uKf808941Gc?t=27s

 

Here are some pictures from race day:
The Christmas lights



Few of the Race Concepts cars parked in the pits. From left to right, my turbo civic, Shashank’s street stock city, Nithin’s turbo honda city (stock bottom end, clocked a 14.6 ET) and Pranay’s turbo honda city (clocked a 14.3 and 14.4 et)



Haven’t got the slightest clue what I’m in for.



Not even remotely



Lining up for my run





Fastest Indian Car of the day:

[blahman]

Fastest foreign Car of the day:




The Race Concepts Team. Few people missing though.



More on the event can be found at the following thread:

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...il-2016-a.html


Bengaluru Drag Fest May 2016

Just as I was getting off the adrenaline rush I experienced while participating in the Jakkur drag, I realized I had become addicted to this sport. Marshalling at rallies is brilliant but, boy oh boy, this was something else altogether. I had participated in the 1600cc to 2000cc forced induction class. The car was exhilarating on the streets but I could never really push the car much because of others like me who were a part of Bangalore’s ever growing traffic. It was nice to push the car in a safe environment.
After the Jakkur drag, I wanted to improve the airflow into the engine bay so I went to my trusted cosmetic design gurus, Motormind! I didn’t want a normal slit like that on an Evo 8’s so Shahid’s designer came up with this brilliant design.



Fast forward a few weeks, there was chatter in the air about another drag event coming up and there was only one obvious choice I would make. I wanted to push the car even further so Joel suggested we do the head work on the engine. I dropped off the car at race concepts without any doubt, I knew he’d push the ceiling while still keeping things safe and reliable. The car was ready to be picked up by the time we were due for the drag scrutiny on Friday. Around 4 of us (Two turbo’d City’s, a street stock and my car) headed out early. The day was fairly uneventful and our cars were cleared to race on Sunday.

All lined up for scrutiny



The day before the race was a nightmare for me. I wanted to get a drag tune for the car so I go to the basement and press the clutch pedal and it just went all the way in and decided to stay there. I pulled it out with my hand and pressed it again and it’s the same. The horror!!! There was no way I could tow the car out of the basement because the basement isn’t tall enough for a flat bed to fit. I called up Joel freaking the hell out, he calmly told me that he’d send his mechs over to my place and look into the matter. It turns out the clutch cylinder was faulty. The spring inside was shredded when they took it out. I called my contact in Honda and he said it was impossible to get one on a Saturday evening since they don’t stock it. Joel’s guys were looking for alternatives back in their garage and also had gone to see if it was available in the car parts market. At this point, my eyes turned to my old moped lying in the corner. Unused, forget service, it wasn’t even started in the last 4 years. Oh how fun it was back then on the Honda Dio, roaming the streets crashing into light poles, rear ending police patrol vehicles and the like. I was pathetic at riding two wheelers, especially the braking part. I’d jam the front brakes, kiss the road and act all confused as to why I fell. It had become a weekly routine before it was taken away from my idiot hands and given a humble Hyundai Santro.

The Santro “Sunshine”, it ran good until I decided to get a FFE by a local mechanic. Somehow I managed to bend the front left arm (axle or whatever you call it) before it was sold off. I was 18 and clueless then. Nostalgia! But I digress.

Joel’s mech told me we could use the spring of the rear brake to replace the spring in the clutch cylinder. I was like huh? You will do what with what? By then I was exhausted, hopeless and I didn’t think twice before I told him to go ahead with it. And did he fix it? Oh hell yea he did! Completely blown away, a humble spring from my good old moped had fixed the Civic!!! We begin to drive to down to Race Concepts and on the way Joel calls me up and tells me that he just finished dynoing merc_lover’s Turbo Civic. He’s like it did a 344 whp run and my jaws were like



We reached the garage by 7.30 in the evening and a couple of other friends were there as well to have their cars tuned for the race. We were there until 11pm and I had to leave since I still had to clean my car and install the Tyre Stickers I had ordered. Yes, I like to borderline rice experiment on my car to see if it suits it. Ended up sleeping at 3 in the morning. The tyre stickers were a pain to install and at the end of it all it didn’t even look that great. Thankfully they were temporary stickers.

The trouble maker:



The 3 A.M tire sticker failure:



Race Day! (Sunday) - I ended up reaching the venue too early in the morning, like 7.15 am early. They weren’t letting anyone inside the venue yet and after a lot of cars started to pile up they opened the gates to let us in. The venue, Taneja aerospace, is beyond insanity. It was a brilliant venue for drag races. All the competitors started to pour in, some drove down and some got their car on flat beds. Lots of smiles and laughter around, everyone’s happy to meet and network with people at such events. No movie style stares of rivalry around, let’s just say it’s turned down to its bare minimum. There were quite a few food trucks around (three ) along with stalls from various companies promoting their products. There was a C63 AMG and a G63 AMG along with an M3 at their respective stands. The C63 was the pace car going up & down the track ferrying the competitors back from the finish. It sounded nice but not as brutal as the cars it was ferrying back. The event was plagued by delays mostly because of competitors having no sense of time to line up. They were making numerous announcements for certain Superbikers and Car drivers to turn up and they arrived at the line up at snail’s pace.

The superbikes ran first, went on to what seemed like forever. By noon, the cars had started to line up. So the car runs were divided into
● Street stock
● Pro Stock
● Ladies Class
● Forced Induction
● Indian Open
● Foreign Cars
● Indian Cars with Foreign Engine
● Unrestricted Class

These classes were further divided into sub-groups according to their CCs.
There was a huge turnout of people, despite the scorching sun most of them stayed until the end.

We were around 13 of us from Race Concepts! Ranging from Zens to Esteems to Citys and Civics.
From left to right, Sugan’s Zen Carbon, Dheeraj’s NA esteem, one of the super stock honda city’s thats raced on the circuit, my turbo civic, Pranay’s Turbo City, Vineet’s Turbo City, Joel’s Turbo City, Merc_lover’s turbo civic, Nithin’s Turbo City, Shashank’s NA City, Farhaan’s Swift with an exhaust mod, and a city and zen (I’m not sure of the mods on these cars)



What can I say about my run. I screwed it up at a hysterical level. I was so embarrassed after the run. What happened?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz063atYMlA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icPmzdNhXtg

The gears grinded so badly I had to facepalm my helmet instead of shifting to third. I instantly knew that was the end of the race for me. We reached the end of the track and we were waiting for the other cars to finish before we were allowed to head back. I congratulated Aditya for his brilliant run on his Turbo’d esteem and waited for the monster Civic to turn up. Hard luck for it as well, the car had a minor glitch and it overboosted during its run so Joel had to bail out off the throttle in the middle of his run. He was visibly furious when he reached the end, he popped the hood did something to it and was all focused on his second run.

We reached back to the start line. Got off the car and gave it to a friend Pranay (Who owns a turbo’d City) and walked towards the audience bay. To my surprise the car lined up against the monster Civic. That was it for me, what I hoped to see. I wanted to see what difference a car almost double my car’s output would make on the drag strip. My car had some wheelspin but man that merc_lover’s car was fast. When my friend showed me the finishing video of the cars at the end it seemed like my car was taking a slow stroll in the park like an old man.

Here’s the monster destroying it’s younger brother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RUneoIuECE

The fun didn’t stop there. Taneja aerospace was full of mad runs and the day just kept on giving and the highlights for me were as follows!
My team mate Vineet, clocked a 11.9 second run in his turbo’d Honda city! This was his first ever drag in that car!!! Here’s the happy man and his car:

[blahman]

Pranay’s street turbo car got him a 12.84 second run, here he is with his beast.





Nithin’s car, also a turbo’d City but with stock internals (As of Taneja Drag). He’s got the ingredients already with him for an all out build. He had a bad run unfortunately and could manage a 15.5 second pass.



I’ve sat in both these cars and when compared to my car, these are wild beasts. Mine feels like a beast in a Tux, the power delivery in these cars are simply brutal



Pratap Jayram sir’s Reva with a Hayabusa engine did well too clocking a 11.7 second pass and was also a crowd favorite:



Joel’s turbo honda blew the national record for an Indian car out of the water by clocking a 11.1 second run (previous record was a 12.0 held by Team Mars, a rear wheel drive mid engined Peugeot with a turbo accord engine). What is interesting to note is that the car has been doing consistently well since it was built. It did a 12.3 second pass at the Amby Valley drag (2015), 12.5 seconds at the ILRC drag (2016), 13.0 seconds at Vroom (2016) and finally the 11.1 run at Taneja. It has been a real treat for me to have seen all the runs since last year!



The Team! We ended up on the podium of almost all the classes we took part in. I do not have all the timing sheets or results with me unfortunately, something I should perhaps start making note of in future events.



Lastly, here’s what my car’s done at the events so far:

ILRC drag run – No idea (the event organizer didn’t bother to get back after repeated calls and texts)

Vroom 2016 – 15.3 seconds and 15. 7 seconds

Taneja Aerospace drag – 16.4 and 16.7 (Thank you failed launches)

Maybe I haven’t got the best times clocked yet but the fun I’ve had is incomparable. Perhaps I must practice launches primarily rather than pouring in more money for performance upgrades. The car is only as good as its driver they say. But I need to keep going one up every few months because I’m addicted. So I’m currently trying to decide between two things

● I sell my current Turbo kit, go for a bigger turbo and the like with coilovers, EBCs, 6pot calipers with slotted discs and forged pistons on the current R18 engine. Or
● Drop a K24 and go all out on it.

Just have to consider the cost, time and daily drivability involved in the K24 swap. Here’s hoping for the best

Thank you for going through my post and I’d love to thank everyone who’s been a part of my journey. You guys have made a huge impact on my life and I cherish every moment I underwent because of motorsports. I hope more people come forward and support such events and keep it alive and flourishing in India for another century. Also, I’d like to think that I’ve appealed to people to take part in such events be it as a spectator or hopefully as a fellow competitor. You’ll always have time to spend money on the weekends at pubs, on holidays or on new gadgets. It doesn’t matter what car you have, there are no restrictions or requirements for a particular brand of cars or a particular set of mods to be done to a car. There are various categories you can take part in.

I leave you with some parting shots of my Civic, such an amazing journey we’ve had together.













PS: I apologize for not citing sources in some images. Most of them were archived on my devices. There is no way for me to remember from where I downloaded them. Most of them have watermarks on the images, for the rest please feel free to PM me or post a reply and I shall gladly give due credit to your images

[Gannu_1]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[swiftnfurious]

Well written and happy for you to live the life you love to! A lot of us still have this remain as a dream. I am sure you'll get seasoned with rallies, so please don't have any apprehensions.

If I may suggest, please have your car tested (for time) by some good drivers (Joel should be the best guy) and spend time practicing it. It may cost a bomb, but then you can afford it is what my belief is!

PS :: Love the sticker work on the tyres - am a sucker for such things!

[sudev]

Great read.

Motorsports : Once this bug ("keeda") has bitten you it becomes life long disease.

[Nitish.arnold]

Envy you blahman, you are living the dream of many.
Our drag races get limited to one red light to another

P.S. 400 HP on a civic? That's brutal. How are the internals handling it.
Is it street legal?

[blahman]

Originally Posted by Nitish.arnold

Envy you blahman, you are living the dream of many.
Our drag races get limited to one red light to another

P.S. 400 HP on a civic? That's brutal. How are the internals handling it.
Is it street legal?

Thank you Nitish.arnold, one of the reasons behind creating this thread was to put across to people that anyone can take part in drag events as well. I was just lucky enough that the drag culture revived in Bangalore at the right moment for me

I guess another thread will be in works from the owner of that beast. The car is built like a tank and making me very envious of it is all I can say for now

[NVA88]

Very well written @blahman and that is a fantastic machine you have there. I understand the confusion you are facing. Bigger turbo and internals on the current engine or a k24 swap and go all out on the goodies. Difficult choices to make in ones life my friend. Either way I am hoping that you decide something soon, do some practice runs and set some good a good time. Many drag events coming up in Bangalore I hear. All the best Blahman

[Pranay J Pandya]

Hey Blahman,

Looks like the second edition of Vroom at Jakkur has been confirmed. Any idea if the SR has been made available yet?