: Bengaluru's Anish Damodara Shetty of EMITSU Honda Ten10 Racing Team emerged champion in the Pro-Stock 165cc as the fifth and final round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI National Motorcycle Racing Championship at the MMRT at nearby Sriperumbudur.
Shetty, a techie and part-time gym trainer, showed remarkable patience to win the Pro-Stock 165cc race by overtaking three front-runners on the last lap.
It was 23-year old Shetty's fourth win and took his tally to 156, way ahead of second-placed Kevin Kannan (Rockers Racing), who remained on 115 after crashing out in the race.
Shetty thus captured the title with one more race to be run tomorrow.
The penultimate day of the 2018 racing season saw Deepak Ravikumar of TVS Racing, running third in the last of the six laps, clinching his maiden win in the premier Super Sport 165cc class after championship leaders and his team-mates, Jagan Kumar and Ahamed Arif crashed out at turn one on the third lap.
Earlier in the race, pole-sitter Rajiv Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) lost ground when the "clip-on" on the handlebar gave away in the second lap, but he still managed to finish third.
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Sethu's Honda team-mate Mathana Kumar got up from a fall, following contact with Sarath Kumar, also of Honda Ten10 Racing, two corners before the finish to finish second behind Ravikumar.
Despite the crash, Jagan, eyeing his seventh consecutive national title, continues to lead the championship with 148 points with Ahamed second (128), followed by Sethu (120) and Mathana Kumar (115) with the second and last race to be run tomorrow (Sunday).
Local girl Ann Jennifer emerged champion in the Girls (Stock 165cc) category with her fourth win in five races.
Results (provisional all six laps unless mentioned): National championship: Super Sport 165cc (Race-1): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (TVS Racing) (11mins, 54.648secs); 2. Mathana Kumar (Honda Ten10 Racing) (12:39.132); 3. Rajiv Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) (13:07.859).
Pro-Stock 301-400cc (Race-1): 1. Sathyanarayana Raju (Gusto Racing India) (11:32.361); 2.Rahil PIllarishetty (Sparks Racing) (11:32.647); 3. Prabhu Arunagiri (Team Alisha Abdullah) (11:32.741).
Pro-Stock 165cc (Race-1): 1. Anish Damodara Shetty (Bengaluru) (12:13.060); 2. Anup Kumar (Team Alisha Abdullah) (12:14.279); 3. Kannan Subramaniam (TVS Racing) (12:14.662).
Girls (Stock 165cc, 5 laps): 1. Ann Jennifer (Sparks Racing) (11:19.207); 2. Ryhana Bee (Sparks Racing) (11:19.362); 3. Nivetha Kumar (Pvt) (11:38.435).
One-make championship-TVS Apache RR 310 (Race-1): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (Chennai) (11:44.741); 2. Peddu Sriharsha (Hyderabad) (11:46.800); 3. Amarnath Menon (Kozhikode) (11:46.961).
TVS 200 (Novice, Race-1): 1. Karthik Mateti (Hyderabad) (13:54.912); 2. Anand Rajendran (Chennai) (13:56.833); 3. Alexander AS (Chennai) (13:57.024).
Race-2: 1.Anand Rajendran (Chennai) 13:56.527; 2. Alexander A S (Chennai) (14:07.923); 3.Anish Samson (Bengaluru) (14:11.845).
Honda Talent Cup CBR 250 (Race-1, 6 laps): 1. Abhishek Vasudev (Bengaluru) (12:22.261); 2. Anish Damodara Shetty (Hubballi) (12:22.641); 3. Aravind Balakrishnan (Chennai) (12:29.805).
CBR 150 (Novice, Race-1): 1. Mohamed Mikail (Chennai) (13:06.889); 2. Kritik Vasant Habib (Gadag) (13:14.110); 3. Anandhu KK (Chennai) (13:15.080).