Chennai, Sep 6 (IANS) Notching his third win in five starts in the premier Pro-Stock 301-400cc Open class, Hyderabad’s Rahil Pillarisetty (RACR Castrol Power1) extended his lead on the points table in the third round of the MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship at the Madras International Circuit, here on Saturday.

The day’s other winners in the National championship included Rajender Beedani (MAI Racing) from Hyderabad in the Stock 165cc (Novice) category, and Chennai’s Jagathishree Kumaresan (One Racing), who won a truncated Girls (Stock 165cc) race.

Meanwhile, Raj Kumar (Motul Sparks Racing) from Coimbatore, topped the Stock 165cc (Novice) race and Mohamed Mikhail (Mad Rabbit Racing) from Thiruvallur, won a close contest in the Stock 301-400cc (Novice) race while Venkatesh Iyyappan (Rookies Racing) took the honours in the Pro-Stock 200cc Open race that saw fraction of a second separating the top three.

The 27-year-old Rahil, piloting a Yamaha R3, who started from pole position, carried far too much pace for the rest, which ensured he had a sufficient gap over his nearest rival, defending champion Sarthak Chavan (Petronas TVS Racing) at the finish line. Rahil’s team-mate Bengaluru’s Anish Damodara Shetty, a former two-time National champion, marked his return to racing after three years with a podium spot.

Later, in one of the closest finishes, the top three in the Pro-Stock 200cc Open race crossed the line almost together with Venkatesh Iyyappan, who had started from P5, just ahead of Senthilkumar (RDX Torque Racing) with Soorya PM (Chandra LGE Racing) in third spot. The race saw some exciting overtaking up and down the grid, with the eventual winner decided only on the finish line.

Defending champion Jagathishree Kumaresan continued her dominating run in the Girls (Stock 165cc) class by notching her fourth win in five starts in a race that was red-flagged after three of the scheduled five laps following an on-track incident.

Finishing in P2 was former National champion Ann Jennifer (Motul Sparks Racing), who was strongly challenging Jagathishree when the race was stopped. Young Rakshita Dave (RACR Castrol Power1) came in third.

Earlier, another Hyderabad rider, Rajender Beedani, recorded his second win of the season in the highly competitive Stock 165cc (Novice) category. The 21-year-old BBA Student shrugged off a bad start, which pushed him down to seventh, but recovered quickly to join the front-runners.

A contact with Aizawl’s Lal Nunsanga (Motul Sparks Racing) saw Rajender running wide and drop to fourth, but again he fought his way back to eventually win the race ahead of Lal Nunsanga and Tirupati’s CS Kedarnadh (KTM Gusto Racing India).

Chennai’s Mohan Babu chalked up his second win in four races with a fine ride in the Expert (TVS Apache RR310) category to open a sizeable lead over another local challenger, G Bavlaji, who finished second in the six-lap race, followed by Hyderabad’s Md Samrul Zubair.

Akarsh Jangam from Vijayawada notched his second win of the season in the Rookie (Apache RTR 200) category after holding off Joshua A (Bengaluru) and Hari Haran (Coimbatore) in a tight finish.

Later, Chennai’s Jagathishree Kumaresan kept her nerves to win the Women’s race (RTR 200) from SP Shuria (Trichy) and Ananya Awasthi (Pune).

Bengaluru’s Solomon R consolidated his top position on the leaderboard in the Honda CB 300F class by scoring his third win in five races, while Tejash BA from Tumakuru finished second ahead of Saroop Krishna (Chennai).

–IANS

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