BBC RADIO 1B
The CTR and JK Tyre FMSCI Indian National Car Racing Championship returns to Kari Motor Speedway for Round 2 from 23 to 25 October. Seventeen races bring single seaters, touring cars, the Levitas Cup and the Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup together for a full weekend of Indian circuit racing.
Photograph: Levitas CupThe sound of a racing weekend at Kari Motor Speedway comes in layers. There is the hard, high note of a single seater on the straight, the fuller engine note of a touring car, then the familiar pulse of a Royal Enfield twin working its way through traffic. From 23 to 25 October, the circuit gathers those different rhythms into one meeting as the CTR and JK Tyre FMSCI Indian National Car Racing Championship returns for Round 2.
The programme is built for a proper day at the circuit. Seventeen races are scheduled across the weekend, with qualifying on Friday and the race action spread across Saturday and Sunday. The live stream is listed on JK Tyre Motorsport’s Facebook and YouTube channels, with coverage beginning at 10am on Saturday and 9.45am on Sunday. Those timings give the paddock a clear shape, though the more important question for the teams is the one the first race always asks: who has arrived with a car that can turn its preparation into a result?
This is Round 2, following the earlier Kari event in September. The return gives the championship a useful continuity. Drivers know the circuit, teams have one round of data to compare, and a result here can change the tone of the season before the calendar moves on. Familiarity never removes the work. It simply gives every garage a stronger reference for where time can be found.
The national car racing championship has been part of India’s circuit racing calendar since 1997. Its strength has always been the range of competition placed under one banner. LGB Formula 4 gives young drivers a single seater route. Touring cars bring production based machinery into a closer, heavier contest. One make cups ask drivers to make the difference in cars built to a common brief. The programme lets a spectator move from one kind of race to another without leaving the same grandstand.
LGB Formula 4 remains one of the meeting’s important reference points. The category uses a 1,298cc carburetted Suzuki Swift engine, an Esteem five speed gearbox and a tubular chrome molybdenum frame. Dhruv Goshwani, Monith Srinivasan, Sandeep Kumar and Saran Vikram were among the drivers named in the pre event preview. The cars offer them a direct lesson in momentum, braking and clean exits. A single seater rewards precision because the driver has little bodywork around them to disguise a mistake. A small slide costs speed, and the following lap is the chance to correct it.
The Novice Cup carries a different kind of promise. It gives racers moving up from karting a place to learn full sized circuit competition, where the braking distances, traffic and physical demands feel larger from the cockpit. A newcomer’s first objective is often to finish cleanly and understand the rhythm of a race. Then the lap times begin to move. That development can happen quietly, one corner at a time, while a more experienced driver is already looking at the next championship point.
The Levitas Cup returns for its second season with race prepared Maruti Suzuki Ignis cars and a grid that brings national competitors together with drivers from Malaysia and Sri Lanka, alongside women racers from across India. The organisers say the current field is built around closely controlled engine outputs, with the Cup’s testing programme recording a fastest lap of 1:25.2 at Kari. The number matters because the cars share a common base. When the equipment is closely matched, the difference is made by braking, line choice and the driver’s judgement in traffic.
The latest Levitas material also shows the work that takes place before a race is ready for its first practice session. The cars sit in a preparation area, the teams check their details, and the people responsible for running the category move between the machines. Twelve interns from the Indian Motorsport Academy are part of the programme, gaining experience in engineering and event administration. That is a useful reminder of what a race weekend builds beyond a finishing order. A championship needs the next group of mechanics, engineers and organisers as much as it needs a fast driver.
The Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup gives the meeting a distinct change of scale. Its sixth edition uses GT R650 and GT R750 platforms, with amateur and professional riders competing in separate grids. The published entry information lists 20 riders in the amateur class and 15 in the professional class, with three races for each. Kabir Sahoch and Saurav Dey are among the amateur names to watch. Senthil Kumar, Anish D Shetty and Allwin Xavier are listed among the professional contenders. A motorcycle race asks for a different kind of commitment from the opening lap. The rider is exposed to every movement of the machine, and the next decision arrives before the last one has quite settled.
The separate grids also give the Cup room to hold both progression and high level competition in view. An amateur rider can learn from the same meeting in which the professional field is chasing a podium. Every class has its own stakes, yet all of them share the same circuit, marshals and service rhythm. The mechanics move quickly from one session to the next, and the spectators can follow a programme that shifts between cars and motorcycles without losing its sense of place.
Kari Motor Speedway is a familiar home for Indian circuit racing, but familiarity does not make it simple. The fastest laps come from a sequence of decisions that have to agree with one another. A driver carries speed into a corner, places the car without asking too much from the tyres, then finds an exit that prepares the next turn. A rider works through the same basic conversation with more movement beneath them. The stopwatch records the answer. The driver or rider has to feel it first.
That is why the meeting’s 17 races should be read as more than a long timetable. Each category gives a different account of how Indian motorsport is developing. The single seaters show young drivers learning to manage speed. The touring cars bring established teams and their carefully prepared machinery. The Levitas Cup creates a common platform for new competitors. The Continental GT Cup lets motorcycle racers build their own contest across the same weekend.
By Sunday afternoon, the results will give the championship its first new order since the September round. The teams will take that order away, study the margins and return to the workshop with another list of small changes. For the people in the grandstand, the reward is more immediate. A morning of racing becomes a full conversation between different machines, drivers and riders, all sharing one circuit and one busy Indian motorsport weekend.
