2017 Honda One Make Race Experience - 2nd Runner Up

With each lap I felt more confident through the corners

I’ve been so caught up talking about how it felt, I completely forgot about the bikes we were riding. So the motorcycles given to us were Honda CBR150Rs turned into race bikes. The exhaust, fueling and body were different on this machine. It made more power and was lighter basically which made a huge difference on the track because it made the CBR150R feel so well balanced and controlled through almost everything I seemed to put it through and it was just so much smoother and more free-revving.

After our first day being spent well, we headed back to our hotel rooms which were an hour away thanks to Chennai traffic. After finally catching up on some precious sleep, we started early the next day and were at the track by 9 AM. To our surprise, the weather was just perfect with no signs of rain and it not being too sunny either. We were each allotted a bike of our own with the transponders fit to time our laps which got us all excited.

It was a beautiful experience on a proper race tool

I managed to post the 4th fastest time around the track which felt awesome

It was the second time I had ever been on the track since yesterday and I was amongst a lot of experienced riders. We were provided lunch and the day came to an end quite early since tomorrow was the big day. It was finally here, day 3 at MMRT and everyone was all set and ready for the Honda one make championship. We had a qualifying round and I managed to qualify with the third fastest lap this time, putting me right ahead on the start line.

As my heart pumped and raced with every passing second, my eyes set dead straight at the lights as they went from red to red to green and it was blast off! I raced as hard as I could and finished in 3rd place to my surprise. I could see all that training take shape and make the winner I was that day. It really goes to show how just 2 days spent at the track can make such a huge improvement that I managed to shave a whole 10 seconds off my first practice session the day before.

We headed over to the podium and by the end of that day, we all looked at each other as rivals but never with the lack of respect. It was one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had and I would most definitely recommend it to everyone out there. 3 years of riding on the ghats couldn’t teach me what I learned from spending merely 3 days at the track. Kudos to Honda for trying to help the talent in India grow and learn in a safe and controlled environment.