JK Tyre National Racing Championship Round 3: Surya Varathan Claims Novice Cup

The penultimate round of the 2018 JK Tyre National Racing Championship was held at the Kari Motor Speedway near Coimbatore this weekend. While the Novice Cup category got a new champion, other categories, including the Euro JK 18 and Gixxer Cup, saw reigning champions strengthen their leads. Many races went down to the wire and the wheels of fortune changed frequently, making for quite a spectacle. Here's all that happened at Round 3 of the championship and what you should brace for in the final round, which is scheduled to be held at the Buddh International Circuit (BIC) in Greater Noida from November 16 to 18.

Despite being the youngest category in the JK Tyre National Racing Championship, the Novice Cup had a good dose of drama to offer. Hashim EKP, who dominated the weekend with three race wins, looked poised to end the round on a high. Unfortunately, he was disqualified for violating the category norms. Ironically, right before he was disqualified, he had told ZigWheels that he had the utmost respect for the rules and other participants. His disqualification effectively handed the championship to Surya Varathan, while 13-year-old Tijil Rao finished second overall.

The 2018 Gixxer Cup, which was so far dominated by Joseph Mathew, saw the Chennai rider come under attack after a long time. While he managed to win the first race of the weekend, Aizawl rider Malsawmdawngliana and Sachin Choudhary took second and third, respectively. The second race, which was held on Sunday, saw Malsawmdawngliana take the lead in the opening stages, with Joseph following close behind. Although both riders were jostling for the lead, they remained within an arm's length of each other. Just when the gritty Aizawl rider seemed poised to pull off an upset, Joseph outwitted him at the final turn, edging past his rival on the final straight. Joseph won by a whisker-thin margin of 0.087 seconds, while Syed Muzamil Ali took the final spot on the podium.

With six wins on the trot, Joseph is now 19 points clear of his nearest competitor and seems poised to take the championship home yet again.

Delhi’s Rohit Khanna from Dark Don Racing made quite a statement by finishing first in the only LGB Formula 4 race that was held on Saturday. Sandeep Kumar and Raghul Rangaswamy finished second and third, respectively. The next day, Rohit climbed from 13th place on the grid to finish first in Race 1. Sadly, his race win was deemed invalid as he incurred a 20-second penalty for “an avoidable collision”, which put him back in 13th place.

His bad luck continued as he failed to finish Sunday's second race with mechanical issues. This gave the first and second spot on the podium to Chittesh Mandody and Sarosh Hataria, respectively. Sohail Shah took third sport. The final race of the day saw Chittesh and Sarosh finish first and second yet again, while third place was snatched by Raghul Rangaswamy. Despite failing to finish on the podium this weekend, Vishnu Prasad managed to stay on top of the standings with 59 points.

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In the most powerful Euro JK 18 category, Karthik Tharani, Ashwin Datta and Nirmal Uma Shankar exchanged the top spot in four races. To amp up the tension, the organisers opted for a reverse grid for the top six on Day 1. This helped Yash Aradhya build a good lead over the others. Unfortunately, this was short lived after he slid off the track after a minor collision. At the end of Round 3, Ashwin is six points ahead of the Karthik Tharani. The Euro JK 18 championship is set to go down to the wire with Nayan S Chatterjee and Sri Lanka’s Brayan Perera hot on the heels of Karthik. That’s definitely something to watch out for at the BIC next month.

Watch this space for the final showdown at BIC as we bring you all the updates live from ground zero.