My journey to the podium via the hair pins

It was “THE KING OF THE CLOUDS” (Hill Climb Race), where I got onto the podium for the first time. My YAMAHA RD350 clocked winning timing twice both 1^st and 2nd in the 2 Stroke 251-350 class. I have participated in the Nandi Hills race event thrice earlier. During my first experience I was not exposed to Hill Climb racing so I couldn’t clock any position. During the second time the weather was not in our favour and it was pouring heavily. We just slipped making it to the podium by a couple of seconds and clocked 4^th. But this time I knew I did not want to keep repeating the same mistake as earlier, as the weather was superb.

We had to struggle a lot to get the bikes to perform as there were a lot of technical stuff to be checked when it comes to the racing engines. I own 3 deadly bikes which pander to my craze. One Drag Race setup Yamaha RD350, one daily street use well used Yamaha RD350 and the last 225cc Karizma blown up to approximately 300cc. We took all the bikes for this event. It was a real challenge to get the engines tuned to perfection as in 2-stroke blown engines according to the climate we have to keep changing the tuning, if it is warm there is a different set of tuning and whenever it is cold there is a different set of tuning. We were working in the garage till 3 am, getting our bikes ready. Still to the last moment we were not happy with the way the Drag Setup RD350 was performing and we decided, if the same is not performing up the hill, we will drop that RD and race only with my street RD and Karizma.

We left Bangalore by six am in the morning and reached the venue by 8am. All our bikes were loaded on to a mini truck. And after reaching it was worse there as there was no time to rest and finish the tune up of the engines. We started tuning up our bikes by 10am and it went on till 2:30pm in the afternoon and still the Drag RD350 wasn’t performing. Finally we decided to drop that bike and carry on with other 2. It really is disheartening after blowing so much time, money, blood, sweat etc and raising our expectations to the highest point. Finally if the engines don’t perform in a race, one really get psyched. Every race, we  blow almost 10k on each machine and therefore have lot of hope on winning.

Being a student it is very difficult to organise approximately 30k for 3 bikes for each race and we race 3 to 4 times a year.

    It was extremely tiring as we didn’t sleep the entire night  working on the engines. And the track is 1.7 kms with 7 sharp hairpin bends. A small miss and you could either go straight to heaven or at hell. Therefore it is not at all advisable to be stressed at the start of your participation, which I definitely will not repeat

The race started, our names were called, and we rode to the starting line, where the countdown starts. I let my mind keep things within my control and thought of taking all the corners as safely as possible but the moment you are on the wheels the scene is totally different. On the fourth hairpin bend which is a lefthander, I almost scrapped the rocky hill through my right shoulder but still managed to keep the wheels on grip. My luckiest escape was on the 6^th corner which was again a lefthander where I almost went to the edge of the track, as my front brakes were totally worn out and I was on zero front brakes. Unfortunately my rear tyres were not in a good condition, so every time I killed the engine it used to keep spinning and fishtail. Even while I was doing the test run, the rear tyre was so bad that I almost climbed the rocky hills about 3 to 4 feet as the bike wasn’t gripping at all.

Overall after all these difficulties, we managed to clock great timings and climb the podium twice on the same red RD350. On the other side, the Karizma clocked in 4^th place which upset me as I slipped the gears 3-4 times. If I had avoided that error I could have easily reached the podium yet another time.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: We race only dressed in proper riding gear and leathers on a given track. HELMET wearing is compulsory, including the entire riding suit as I personally saw 2 major accidents in this event where neither rider was wearing any  safety measures. Today one of them is struggling for his life and the other with a major vehicle loss.

KALYAN

[ZAM Motors Club, Bangalore]