A Racing Overhaul: The Irungattukotai Circuit Is Headed For A Revamp

The Irungattukotai circuit is headed for a revamp but the racing already has been with star turns from youngsters and experienced hands.

It had been nearly four years since I had traveled to the Irungattukotai race track at Sriperumbudur in Chennai to cover a motor sport event when I reached for the third round of the National Racing Championship (NRC).

The title sponsor back in 2009 was different (JK Tyre) as were the classes within the championship but with the exception of the refurbished section of the pit straight, not much had changed.

Most notably a lot fewer trees than now that give those in the viewing towers an unimpeded view of the circuit, including the section where rider S Dinesh Edwin tragically lost his life aboard a motorcycle during a private testing session this May.

However, the Madras Motor Sport Club (MMSC), which owns and operates the track seeks to put that in the past with a planned revamp that will see a new pit complex, two distinct sections of the track and a new pit garage complex, media centre and hospitality area.

At the time of going to press the fourth round of the Championship would have come and gone while the racing fraternity makes do, for the time being, with the current 3.717km layout.

And it made for a packed racing weekend featuring MRF’s Formula Ford 1600, Indian Touring Cars (ITC), Indian Junior Touring Cars (IJTC), Formula Swift + LGB4 and Toyota Etios Motor Racing series (EMR).

The EMR initially threw up the talking point of the weekend after a tangle involving four drivers in which others were inadvertently caught up as well.

The one-make EMR series that features drivers that are 24-years-old and under has delivered on its promise of being a bare basic starting point for someone interested in motor racing.

At the expense of heavily damaged bodywork though, Toyota have learnt it has served the purpose of being an outlet for heavy right feet as well, and not all of them being highly experienced! Through the chaos though, Diljith won two of the three EMR races while Arjun Narendran took the other.

The fourth race, however, was cancelled when the rain started to pour and the EMR cars did not have wet weather tyres ready on separate rims.

The rain stayed away, however, from the FF1600 races where Japan’s Yuudai Jinkawa, Tarun Reddy and Ashwin Sundar claimed wins. Fifteen-year-old Reddy impressed with a podium and a strong points finish in the races he didn’t win and showed encouraging progression through the course of his debut car racing campaign.

And although watching the youngsters race did provide some cautious hope for the future, the ITC category possibly served one of the best talking points in India’s racing season.

On a weekend free from rallying duties, former three-time national rally champion Gaurav Gill put on a masterclass of driving in the ITC as he clinched pole position from his tuner-turned good spirited competitor N Leelakrishnan.

Leela, as the former seven-time national rally champion is known, was outqualified by Gill by a margin of 1.6 seconds before the former Production World Rally Championship competitor won the 10 lap race by over 16 seconds.

And even as the rain poured down to wash out the fourth EMR race, Gill won the second ITC race handily too.

It was a performance talked about in amazement even at the JK Tyre Racing weekend!

Japan’s Yuudai Jinkawa first made headlines in India in the most unusual fashion. While competing in the MRF Formula 2000 races at last December’s Sidvin Festival of Speed, his spectacular crash was photographed and splashed in the sports pages of national newspapers. The frightening accident that had his car flipping vertically left him surprised and bemused. But not, by his admission to autoX during an interview, as much as by what happened afterwards. “I was actually more surprised that I won the next race!” said Jinkawa jokingly. “And also the amount of attention the crash got was very surprising to me also.”

In fact Jinkawa was surprised that he got the offer to race in the F2000 class at all as he didn’t expect attention from an Indian based series. “I had raced briefly in Formula Challenge in Japan that were also Renault powered like these cars,” said Jinkawa. “And when I found out that I could have a chance to race in the support race for Formula 1, I agreed to race in Formula 1600.” Jinkawa is among other Japanese racers in the F1600 class who are competing without being eligible for points. Him and his compatriots are as much benchmarks for young Indian drivers as they are opponents. Their racing, and at times committment to passing certainly has people talking!