Chennai, Aug 23 (IANS): While 16-year old Tarun Reddy destroyed the MRF Formula 1600 field, winning by nearly nine seconds, it was Feroze Khan who came up with two heroic drives despite an elbow injury to finish on the podium in the Indian Junior Touring Cars category on the first day of the MMSC-FMSCI National Racing Championship here Saturday.
The fast improving Reddy, who is also racing in the Formula UK Renault, came up with a near-flawless drive as he completed to pole-to-flag win to extend his championship lead over Advait Deodhar, who finished second, to 13 points. A distant third was Karthik Tarani.
Reddy showed an impressive turn of speed as he increased the lead over the chasing pack with each lap and eventually had nearly nine seconds to spare with Deodhar in a lonely second, well clear of Tarani.
Earlier, IJTC defending champion Feroze Khan, nursing an elbow injury and his right hand in a preventive sling, drove two fine races to finish second in both the races that were won by Senthil VIJ and Sidharth B.
In the first race, Khan missed a gear at the start and dropped to 10th, but cut through the field to finish second behind Senthil and ahead of Sidharth.
Khan started the second race in third position and had leader Sidharth in his sights, but ran out of laps just as he looked certain to get past. Senthil came in third.
Ajay Kini achieved a double by winning both the Formula LGB 1300 races, the second of which was run on a drying track. Kini won the first race comfortably and finished second behind S. Narendran in the next outing.
However, Narendran received a 10-second penalty for a racing infringement and slipped to fifth while Kini moved up a spot to first.
Meanwhile, Bala Vijay (Performance Racing), unbeaten this season in the Super Stock class, chalked up two more wins Saturday.
The results:
MRF Formula 1600 (Race 1 - 10 laps): Tarun Reddy 1 (17mins, 19.559secs); Advait Deodhar 2 (17:29.472); Karthik Tarani 3 (17:47.766).
Formula LGB 1300 (Race 1 - 8 laps): Ajay Kini (Bangalore) 1 (15:44.813); S Narendran (Chennai) 2 (15:50.416); Goutham Parkeh (Chennai) 3 (15:51.720). Race 2: Ajay Kini 1 (17:05.851); Goutham Parekh 2 (17:06.344); Deepak Paul Chinappa (Bangalore) 3 (17:10.772).
Indian Touring Cars (Race 1 - 10 laps): Arjun Narendran (Big Foot Racing) 1 (19:16.910); Ashish Ramaswamy (Big Foot Racing) 2 (19:35.089); Radha Selvarajan (RAD Racing) 3 (19:44.944). Race 2: C Raja Ram (Coimb atore) 1 (19:35.989); Ashish Ramaswamy 2 (19:37.874); Arjun Narendran 3 (19:42.170).
Super Stock (Race 1 - 9 laps): Bala Vijay (Performance Racing) 1 (19:18.678); Joel Joseph (Gas Monkey Motorsports) 2 (20:03.054); Sudanand Daniel (Performance Racing) 3 (20:10.467). Race 2 (10 laps): Bala Vijay 1 (21:05.722); Joel Joseph 2 (21:36.377); MN Sridhar 3 (20:18.106 1 lap).
Indian Junior Touring Cars (Race 1 - 8 laps): Dr Senthil VJ (Trichy) 1 (16:59.210); S Feroze Khan (Chennai) 2 (17:03.939); Sidharth B (Coimbatore) 3 (17:05.603). Race 2: Sidharth B 1 (16:53.936); Feroze Khan 2 (16:54.202); Dr Senthil VJ 3 (17:00.091).