Indonesia maintain ASEAN Cup Race dominance

Riders from Indonesia completely dominated at the 10th Yamaha ASEAN Cup Race while Indian racers failed to make their presence felt at the one-make international championships on Sunday.

Bogor (Indonesia): Riders from Indonesia completely dominated at the 10th Yamaha ASEAN Cup Race while Indian racers failed to make their presence felt at the one-make international championships here on Sunday.

While Thailand ruled in the ST (Sport) category, the host riders were phenomenal in the MT (Manual Transmission) section at the Sentul International Circuit. Indonesia bagged their sixth overall team title at the championships which concluded today. The hosts were followed by Thailand and Malaysia in the overall standings after cumulative scores in the two classes. India had a forgetful outing as four of its five members failed to complete the 12-lap race on the 3.96km long track. Riders Akash Dingare, Ananth Raj and Vivek Pillai crashed out in the first lap of Race 2 itself, while Lal Rindika collapsed in the final lap. Only Shyam Shankar could complete the race at the 14th position with a timing of 24:53.622s. In Race 1, Ananth had finished at 10th position in 24:28.374s while Akash (24:45.567s) stood at 12th place. The two-legged race, using YZF-R15, saw Thailand riders outperforming others as Prawat Yannawat and Paitoon Nakthong sealed the overall first and third position in the ST class. Prawat took pole in first race with a timing of 24:16.961s while Malaysian rider Izzar Zaidi Salehan (24:19.060s), who finished third overall, won Race 2. For many Indian riders, the tournament was their maiden international experience, and felt enriched after the exposure. "Little disappointed with my performance but the exposure will have a huge impact on our racing career. Now we have got the first hand experience of riding with seasoned campaigners. It was a great learning curve," said Vivek Pilai, who failed to complete both the races. Another rider Akash, who competed in expert category for the first time in his career, said: "I got to learn the fearlessness from these riders. They believe in leading from the beginning and can`t see riders going in front. I have absorbed lot of riding techniques from others which will help me in my racing career." "It was a wonderful experience and a privilege," the 20-year-old from Pune added. In the MT category, Indonesian riders Richard Taroreh was the best rider followed by his countryman Herman Bass, while third position went to Peerapong L of Thailand. The riders were using Yamaha`s Jupiter Z1 sporty underbone type model in this category. The first three riders in each category won USD 1000, USD 800 and USD 600 respectively along with a trophy. Earlier, two-time MotoGP world champion and Yamaha racer Jorge Lorenzo rode on this track using YZF-R6 bike. The 15000-odd gathering cheered every lap by the Spaniard who also performed stunts during his joy ride.