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.

Day 2 Thomas Kuttruf and Norbert Zaha, Director for KTM in Germany operation decided that Dilip should also ride the Duke Battle and get more track time. Dilip finished 22nd rank among 32 riders.

He also practiced the RC 8 Race prepared bike Team Schittko prepared KTM RC8 with quick filling tank fully prepared endurance bike. Finally Dilip clocked 1.37 sec at the timed practice 2 section. The 4 hour race needs gasoline filling only 4 times where others have to fill 8 times during the pit stop. Since the race Bike is considerably different than the setting, the setting needed to be adjusted to adopt for his Teammate Thomas who is a well known German (top 5) Road Racer.

Day 3 saw a very confident Dilip on the Bike, competing for the first time in the Duke Battle race on 990 Duke. He had a reasonable start and finished at 13th place. Since the 4 hour endurance race was scheduled soon after the 2nd race of the Duke, the team decided that he will not race the 2nd Duke Battle race.

The team concluded that Dilip will start the race and ride an hour and after which Thomas took over.

The 4 Hour endurance race preparation is very intensive and need plan for quick pit stop, gas filling, and tire change strategy. All the plans were worked out briefing night before the race day.

A phase of bad luck struck at the start as the configuration of the bikes in 1st gear for a fast take off failed to operate. Despite being unable to achieve a good start Dilip was able to configure quickly and put into neutral to start the bike, which delayed and put him almost more than a minute behind and last in start after the safety car.

Dilip picked up the speed in lap running at 1.39 locking up the average speed of 119 kph even though there were much of traffic and was cautious enough to keep up the momentum because of the 4 hours endurance race. He clocked over 250 km top speed. With146 laps to go, Dilip made the passes and was running 36th place in 30 min. It was a brilliant effort from this young lad who ran high speed laps in a unknown circuit and also maneuvered with those riders he had never competed earlier. Finally he managed to get into 30th position before handing it over to his teammate. After an hour Thomas took over, he was such a pro to catch up and passed many riders right away and put a great ride with 1.38 lap time.

Things started to shake up in the pits, the lap timings were kind of dropped, pit stop was made to rectify the mapping of the bike on performance. Since the tank was designed for endurance, the performance mapping and the configuration need to change for such a long endurance race. The difference was the bike was dropping the rpm in certain area where they could use more power. So it was adjusted to accommodate the performance, the trouble shooting team recognize the need and made the adjustment. Unfortunately, even though Schittko KTM Teams pit stop was the fastest, it still could not maintain the timing to accommodate and move towards the top position.

The team ended up with 42nd position finishing 128 laps; fastest lap was 1.38.369 on the 106th lap. It was a great experience over all for Dilip and having a great privilege teaming with the former German road racer Thomas Kutruff.

"Very promising" were the words from Thomas Kuttruf, as they shook hands at the end of this memorable weekend “It was a pleasure to be in touch now with such a nice person and talented, super focused racer by heart. We are looking forward to be part of his career how ever things will develop in future – Dilip is “Ready to Race

Dilip said:” it was my dream to go to Europe to race the GP, on the other hand, the endurance race gave me more awareness what the world class racing is all about. Riders in Europe are very fast and I have learned more on their riding techniques and style. It was a great opportunity for me like life time experience and my dream come true. I would like to thank KTM Austria and Mr. Konrad Schittko and his Team and Mr. Zaha Norbert Director of KTM Germany for giving this opportunity for making my dream come true” I could not express enough thanks to entire KTM family for giving me the opportunity for explore my riding in Germany.

My most special thanks to Mr. Selvaraj Narayana who has won life time achievement awards many times in the US in the motorcycle Industry. As a high level executive Indian born ( Coimbatore ) he has given Dilip so much encouragement in the past year. Dilip added” Narayana Sir is our icon and with out his help and support we would have never reached this far. His continued support and his passion will help prove that the Indian Racers can be world class contenders in racing”

Mr. Selvaraj Narayana was totally excited about Dilip’s potential to become a world class racer. I have been around many races and many riders in my entire 38 years in the racing world. "Dilip’s one of the most humble and dedicated racer that I ever dealt with. Good luck to Dilip to run in world class racing again”.

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