The first round of the 2019 JK Tyre National Racing Championship (JKNRC) kicked-off this weekend and saw young racers coming back to the track across multiple categories. The 22nd edition of the JKNRC has been repackaged completely and has the Indian Formula LGB-4 and the LGB Novice Cup as its star series. In the two-wheeler category, the Suzuki Gixxer Cup will see young riders competing in the championship. As many as 27 new racers lined up for their first real shot at glory.
In the Formula LGB-4 category, Vishnu Prasad took victory in the first race on Saturday. The race started with Sohil Shah on the pole with Ashwin Datta in second place. The race remained largely between the two racers but Shah spun on Lap 6 at Turn 2, dropping at the back of the field. This allowed Datta to take the lead, while Vishnu Prasad who was running fourth had to chance to move up the order thanks to a late safety car period. With just one lap left to the chequered flag, Prasad dashed his way to the front and overtook Datta at the restart bagging the victory for the first race of the season in the LGB category. Datta finished third as Rohit Khanna of Dark Don racing finished second, but a penalty pushed the veteran to P4 allowing Datta and Raghul Rangasamy in the final classifications.
Day 2 saw a dramatic turn quite literally as both Vishnu and Raghul showed their competitive edge on the track. The day began with Raghul stealing the thunder but ended with Vishnu streaking to his second last-lap win to spice up the competition. There was a lot of post-race drama though with Vishnu first dislodged from the top before being reinstated again after a series of protests. This puts their team MSport in the lead, while Vishnu's three podium finishes over the weekend puts him in the lead of the championship with a total of 28 points.
Chirag Ghorpade secured the first place in the JKNRC Novice Cup category in Round 1
The JK Tyre Novice Cup too saw some heated off-the-track action. Momentum Motorsports driver Chirag Ghorpade of Bangalore took all three wins over the weekend but was penalised for the last race for making a jump start. The 10 second penalty placed him at P8. Mohamed Ryan of team MSports was promoted to the top spot for the third race of the weekend while Aaroh Ravindra of team Momentum took second position. The change did hurt Chirag's ovrall stnadings in the championship, yielding to Aaroh in the driver standings.
Mira Erda won the LGB Formula 4 Women's Category on the final day of Round 1
In the first round of the fifth edition of the Suzuki Gixxer Cup, Bangalore's Syed Muzammil Ali secured back-to-back wins, securing his lead in the championship. Coming in second was Pune's Tanay Gaikwad followed by Sidharth Sajan who also finished on the podium over the weekend. The JK Tyre Redbull Road to Rookies saw Ikshan Shanbag of Satara taking his second straight win, while Chennai-based racer Prashanth R and Pune's Aryan Gurav took the remaining two spots on the podium.
The 2019 JKNRC had a new category introduced for women celebrating the best racer in the LGB-4 category. Mira Erda of team MSport grabbed the top spot in each of the races. Ahura Racing's duo of Megaa KS and Diana Pundole finished in first runner-up and second runner-up positions in the races over the weekend.
