Almost seven years – that’s the duration separating the present day from the day I almost settled in the lap of the Almighty. Young and foolish, I took to biking as if I’d been riding since I was 3 years old and knew what I was doing. Obviously, I didn’t – in hindsight. With an intention of being race-ready in no time, I used to ride with an overdose of gusto. And while fooling around one lovely evening, the inevitable happened. I fell – big time.
A broken jaw, bed ridden for one year, short term memory loss, busted ego, broken confidence, a totalled bike – that was the result of my stupid ostentation. Hibernation from eventful biking ever since – that was my status, till an invitation from Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) turned it around.
I hardly ever allowed my mind to sway in the blizzard of evil – and never really (okay, just once or twice) went leaning my bike. To be honest, I did not have the balls to peg-scrape and the accident was always at the back of my mind. But then I started to test out bikes a bit more, and things got better and I gained some of that lost confidence. And as things are today, I am quite comfortable and enjoy biking.
Having raced the FISSME race cars, I jumped at the opportunity presented to autoX by HMSI to hit the track on the CB Twister. Though Jared is the official ‘bike guy’ here, I thought of an evil plan and simply engulfed him in the Yamaha Fazer test and sent out a confirmation mail to HMSI about my participation. Job one complete, yay! It was a pretty straight forward plan from there – pack in the biking stuff, board the flight, reach, race, demolish the opposition, secure the win, humiliate and taunt other so-called racers, walk back with pumped up ego and flaunt your achievement in office.
As it turned out, things didn’t exactly go as I’d planned.
As we drove into the track, I could feel nostalgia settling in. This was the very track I started racing cars on. And now, I would be starting another chapter in my life – bike racing – on the same track. As we entered the paddock, I saw the bikes we’d be racing. The golden paint job on the CB Twisters looked striking but I was expecting more – a custom exhaust, worked up cam, race-spec handlebars, even a monoshock perhaps. If wishes were horses! The CB Twister was bog-standard – no frills, no custom witchcraft. Damn. In retrospect, it was a good thing they were standard bikes.
Having never ridden a CB Twister before, I consulted Jared over a phone call and he told me that the CB Twister is quite a nice bike – the best in its segment and handled like a dream. I was confident and after seeing the still-waiting-for-puberty teenagers, I was fancying my chances to an exponential level. Then we got down to business.
Getting into race-spec driving overalls isn’t tough really, but putting on the protective suit for bikes is not just immensely difficult, but outright vulgar if done in an open space. I took my suit, went in the media room reserved for us, locked it from inside and took my sweet time moaning and cursing every single bike race suit maker on Earth as I struggled to get my limbs inside.
After fitting myself in the suit somehow and satisfied that the bulge of my tummy wasn’t showing, I went down the pit lane, looking like a Power Ranger, to swing my leg around the No. 20 bike I was given. I was frustrated because we’d have to go through the qualifying. What’s the point, I thought. I’d anyway be claiming pole position, so why not simply let me feast on good meal and flirt around with the grid girls while others racers went round uselessly trying to out-do each other? But protocol is meant to be followed and I respect that. So I too hit the track. Soon, it became apparent that the racers who I thought would be jokers on the track were actually direct descendants of biking Gods and I was the one who was reduced to the status of a joker.
The practice and qualifying in a combined format lasted for 20 minutes, and every second felt like a real ‘moment’ in my life. During all those 1200 moments, I was simply hoping for time to freeze.
Since the CB Twister falls in the Novice category, the racers have to do the short loop of the MMST track which is a shade under 2.1 kilometres long. It took me as many as four laps just to get the hang of the braking zone, racing lines and the bike itself. On normal roads, bikes are just a mode of transport, but on a track, even a humble bike as the CB Twister (109cc, 9bhp engine, for crying out loud) gets transformed. The more time I spent on the bike, the more I appreciated its dynamics. I was sceptical of the thin tyres it comes with, but the overall balance and composure of the chassis meant that I was soon peg-scraping the bike, and crapping myself in the process! Whenever my boot would touch against the tarmac, my heart would skip a beat or two – but I was enjoying it beyond belief.
But this was not a joke and I had to get serious about doing a good lap, as time was running out fast. My only concentration was on bagging in one – at least one – lap without any mistake. That didn’t happen. I would screw up the exit from turn three or ruin the entry into the next flowing right hander. C10 was also quite a challenge and I never, not even once, managed to get a good line there. This was, however, not the worst thing to happen.
Do you know what the definition of humiliation is? Being lapped by as many as six racers in all but 20 minutes on the track! Yes, I was lapped. By six of them. The only saving grace was that they were professional bike racers; otherwise the burden of embarrassment would be intolerable. And even on the straight, I was completely annihilated (despite of doing everything and looking properly cool by using racing techniques like tucking behind the fairing and crouching on the tank) – largely owing to my weight and the bike’s power (rather lack of it). Even with full commitment and touching the track while exiting C2, there were maniacal guys who’d go down the inside of me and all I could do was curse from within my helmet.
At the end, I was more than 13 seconds slower than the tiny little fellow who took pole position. I qualified 42nd out of some 60 odd guys, which wasn’t really bad, taking into account that I was racing a bike for the first time, and was competing against expert riders who’ve been racing for quite a while. This isn’t an excuse to defend my performance, just a motivation to do better. And I’d go for the Stunner next time. Time then, to shed the extra kilos and get racing fit!
See you later, trackside.
Motoring & Beyond 