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        Vol  048
Dt
11-05-2009
NK's new racing challenge

“The Fastest Indian in The World” Narain Karthikeyan opened a new chapter in his distinguished International Motorsports career last weekend, by finishing 6th in his first Le Mans Series race for the Kolles Audi Team, driving the Audi R10 TDi LMP1 Sportscar. The 5.5 liter V12, turbo-diesel powered car is one of the most successful sportscars in the history of the championship, winning the Le Mans 24-hour classic for the past three years.

Narain added another couple of ‘firsts’ to the innumerable ‘firsts’ in his career CV, becoming the first Indian driver to enter the Le Mans Series, and the first to score championship points, that too in his debut race.

The 1,000 km Endurance race held at the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit in Belgium was the venue of the second round of the 2009 Le Mans Series (LMS), where Narain started his summer season of racing in 2009. With its mixture of long straights, fast corners and varying gradients, the circuit ranks as one of the most technically challenging circuits in the world, and is a firm favourite with teams and drivers alike. Narain has good memories of this track, as it was the venue of a great battle between himself & Jacques Villeneuve during his 2005 Formula 1 campaign.

Due to the 1,000 km long endurance nature of the races (a Formula 1 race is only 305 km long), Narain shared driving duties with two other drivers, Briton Andrew Meyrick & Dutchman Charles Zwolsman. Narain undertook the driving duties during qualifying on Saturday and qualified the car 9th on the grid, ahead of the teams’ second car driven by Christian Albers. < read more.... >

Impressive debut by Dilip Rogger in Germany

Dilip Rogger finishes the 4 hours endurance race at Oschersleben race track the historical town of motor sport in Germany successfully.

This was Dilip’s first ever appearance in 4 hour Endurance 1000 Berge Trophy, Road Race at Oschersleben in Germany . He also had the privilege to ride KTM Duke Battle Race.This is the first time ever an Indian Racer participating in the German national road race event. It was a dream come true experience for Dilip Rogger. He got an opportunity to go to Germany .

Dilip Rogger and his mom witnessed gracious hospitality from the moment they were picked up form the Munich airport by the KTM marketing staff Martin Schaumloeffel. He took Dilip Rogger all the way to the KTM Factory under the Alps in Mattighofen Austria . After the mind blowing visit at KTMs factory, Dilip had a chance for the first time to ride the 1200cc twin cylindered RC 8. It was a dream come true for Dilip to sit on one of the prestigious bike ever made. Dilip Rogger was so very impressed and it was much beyond his expectation to see such a spotless modern factory and was fascinated by the technologies of the production, racing and even the R & D facilities. He was stunned and also never had an idea if it would take so much to make world class sport motorcycle.

Day 1: KTM Crew prepared a brand new KTM RC 8 R version prepared by the KTM marketing staff. This is the fist time Dilip sat on the real Production race version of the standard RC 8 R bike. With out making any changes, Dilip adopted the bike and got used to it. Being in Asia the race track environment is not something new to Dilip.

In the first run, Dilip’s lap timings were very average to 1.44 to 1.40 sec. the fastest lap time world caliber riders make it at 1.33 to 1.35 sec on the 3.66 km race track. Since Dilip needed more practice KTM booked additional entries to get more track time during practice. It was really a bonus for Dilip to get some more practice at the track.

< read more.... >

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