Nayan, Yash, Arjun shine in national racing tourney

On a rain-hit Sunday, championship favourite Ricky Donison suffered a double blow that saw him surrender his leadership position after the fourth and penultimate round of the 13th JK Tyre FMSCI National Rotax Max Championship at the Mohite Racing Academy here.

Donison of BPC Racing, who had won all three earlier rounds, couldn’t come to terms with the wet and slippery conditions on the track and lost his edge in the Senior Max category. He zipped into the parcferme area in the scrutiny bay as he felt that he had a problem with his kart.

He came back a few minutes later to rejoin the race but by then the race organisers had removed his transponder, deeming him DNF (did not finish) on technical grounds. It meant that he had to be content with 38 points in the final that saw him slip to the second position with 324 overall points. 

Chennai’s Vishnu Prasad jumped into the lead in the battle for the championship by finishing third in the pre-final and fourth in the final on an action-packed Sunday. He has a nominal four-point lead now with 328 points in his bag, going into the final round next month. 

The round itself was won by Mumbai’s Nayan Chatterjee (Meco Racing) in an exciting race. Starting from the sixth place, he drove aggressively to come into contention in the opening lap itself. By the fifth, he was in the lead and didn’t give any other driver the opportunity to catch him.

In the Micro Max category, Shahan Ali looked unbeatable till the rains came down. The 12-year-old from Agra preferred not to take any undue risk and couldn’t do anything as Arjun Nair (Meco Racing) sneaked past him in the opening lap itself.