Narain selects Ameya, Aditya Akkineni, Akhil Khushlani & Aditya Patel

Coimbatore: 20 July 2006

It’s been a long two days. Not just for the 12 contenders, but for Narain Karthikeyan himself. The contenders have been on tenterhooks, waiting for the announcement of driver selection for Narain Karthikeyan’s new teams, Amaron NK Racing & Speed NK Racing. For them, it’s like waiting for an exam result, something which they’re not too unfamiliar with, considering all of them are in college. For Narain as well, it’s been two days of hard thinking, of analyzing the large amount of data collected during the shoot-out on Tuesday, studying their past records and achievements, and the teamwork skills they demonstrated.

It was also finally decided that one driver with extensive experience in domestic racing will be selected. His knowledge of Indian racing cars from the past seasons will prove to be a great benefit to the team in it’s first year of operations. As Narain may not be able to attend all the scheduled six rounds of the 2006 JK Tyre National Racing Championship due to his commitments as a Williams Formula 1 test driver, this was deemed to be important. The other three drivers were selected based on their lap-times, consistency, natural ability, and their career performances to date.

The drivers selected for Narain Karthikeyans team in the 2006 JK Tyre National Racing Championship, in the Formula Rolon category are as follows:

• Ameya Walavalkar, 23 years old from Mumbai
• Aditya Akkineni, 17 years old from Hyderabad
• Aditya Patel, 17 years old from Chennai
• Akhil Khushlani, 16 years old from Hyderabad

Two reserve drivers have also been appointed. It will be their job to step into any of the above driver’s cockpits, in case of the above driver’s inability to attend a race weekend due to illness, injury or clashing educational commitments. These reserve drivers will also receive some financial assistance to pursue their racing careers in other categories of domestic racing.

• Kartik Shankar, 19 years old from Delhi
• Ajay Kini, 17 years old from Chennai

All the drivers who attended the shoot-out at The Kari Motor Speedway on Tuesday 18th July 2006, showed huge amounts of talent, determination, maturity, and desire to be the best, and Narain is very thankful to all of them for enthusiastically supporting his new venture in Indian Motorsport. His advice to all of them is to continue pursuing their dreams of motor racing glory. “I’m really happy to give these young guns this opportunity, and to mould them into international standard professional racing drivers. This will be their first steps in this direction and I wish them good luck, and hope they have long and successful careers in international motor racing.”

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