Jagan Kumar wins sixth straight title at National Motorcycle Racing Championship

TVS Racing’s mascot Jagan Kumar notched his sixth straight title in the premier Super Sport Indian (165cc) class on a rain-affected day to bring down the curtain on the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship on Sunday.

Massive downpour in the early hours disrupted the procedings here but a herculean effort by officials got the club circuit (short loop, 2.1 Kms) ready for racing with the full circuit (3.7 Kms) not available due to water-logging.

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Thus, three of the seven races were cancelled since the championships in those categories were already decided.

Going into Sunday’s race, Jagan enjoyed a six-point lead over Honda Ten10 Racing’s Rajiv Sethu, but the expected challenge did not materialize as the latter crashed at Turn-2 in the very first lap.

Thereafter, Jagan was on a cruise mode and seemed content to finish second behind Sethu’s team-mate Mathana Kumar who eased past in the last lap. Harry Sylvester (TVS Racing) came in third.

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It was a splendid comeback by Jagan who, at one point in the season, trailed Sethu by 33 points but three back-to-back wins, including one on Saturday, put the TVS Racing rider’s campaign back on track as he clinched the title in this class, previously known as “Group B”, for the sixth year in a row by a comfortable 24-point margin.

Aravind Balakrishnan (Honda Ten10 Racing) took the title in the Pro-Stock class though he finished a distant eighth in the race won by his team-mate Anish Shetty. Balakrishnan thus finished with 138 points, 13 ahead of Aravind Ganesh (Moto-Rev).