Yearly Archives: 2011

Madras Motor Sports Club has announced the next AVT Duchess Club Womens Car Rally to be held on Sunday,10th July, 2011, from 9 a m onwards. The Rally will be the 10th rally conducted by the Duchess Club, regularly in as many years. The Duchess Rally will follow the TSD format, covering a distance of 75km.

Entry fee is Rs.800 which includes lunch for the team of four people.

This year as a special incentive, AN ALL MALE category has been included.

Briefing will be held on Saturday, 9th July, 2011, at Hotel Savera from 5 p m onwards. Registration forms can be had from Duchess Club, Hotel Saver or MMSC. Registration will be accepted from 3.00 pm up to 4.30 p m on 9th July, 2011, at Hotel Savera. Forms are also available online here. Forms will also be sent on email,if requested, at mmsc_chennai[at]yahoo.co.in.

Next year sees the introduction of the CRTs (Claiming Rules Teams) which can use a production 1000cc engine in a prototype chassis.  The Marc VDS team that is headed by Michael Bartholomy, the head of the wound up Kawasaki MotoGP effort have been using a Suter chassis with a BMW 1000cc engine in it for sometime now.  Monday was supposed to be the first time that Yamaha would test their 1000cc prototype motorcycle along with the Honda and Ducati 1000cc MotoGP machines for next year.  Ducati cried off from the test since it had already used many of its allotted testing days, thanks to Valentino Rossi and Honda too decided to stay away perhaps to not show its hand.  Yamaha followed suit and the Monday test at Mugello became the final test for the 800cc MotoGP machines but the Marc VDS CRT MotoGP machine did participate with its 1000cc engine.  It was nearly six seconds slower than the record smashing lap of Casey Stoner.  One hopes that the CRT teams will be able to put up respectable timings, otherwise what is the point in having more numbers just for the heck of it?

A Brazilian website www.autoesporte.com.br has been posting pictures of a new Hyundai small car for some time now.  The Indian websites are calling it the i15 (code name: HB) and are saying that this car will slot in between the i10 and the i20.  We would like our reader to understand that this is not the sub Santro car which is code named HA (and we don’t know if it will be called i5).  For whatever it is worth here are the pictures of the so called i15 from the Brazilian website.

Last year Mahindra launched the 110cc Stallio motorcycle with great fanfare along with the 300cc Mojo motorcycle and even signed on Amir Khan as its brand ambassador.  In the very competitive motorcycle market the Stallio sank and this was attributed to a faulty gear box.  Within a few months Mahindra withdrew the Stallio from the market.  The Mojo which was to be launched in the December of 2010 was never launched.  The grape vine only said that Mahindra were in the process of ironing out all the glitches on the Mojo along with those on the Stallio.  The responsibility for developing both these motorcycles was given to Engines Engineering of Italy that Mahindra bought out.  Engines Engineering is the firm that is making the 125cc racing motorcycles for Team Mahindra and prior to that had done so for Lambretta and Chinese company Loncin.  Now there is talk of the Stallio being relaunched during the festive season and that two more motorcycles having 135cc and 155cc engines are also in the process of development.  However, there is no news of any kind on the 300cc Mojo whose price was also announced.  Has Mahindra developed cold feet due to the launch of the Ninja 250R and the CBR 250R?  If that is the case then we would like to tell Mahindra to be brave and go ahead with the launch of the Mojo.  It is only by competing against the best that one gets better.

The Mahindra Gio when it was launched as a cargo carrier met with some serious disapproval for its aesthetics, or the lack of them.  The reason for this is quite obvious.  What Mahindra had done was to use their three wheeler Alfa platform and convert it into a four wheeled one and this they did by “attaching” the front grille onto the rounded front of the three wheeler.  The front wheels also looked oddball thanks to the fact that they also looked like add ons.  But the vehicle did well since it was competent in doing what was expected of it.  Who looks at aesthetics while buying commercial vehicles?  Now Mahindra has launched the passenger version of the Gio in Hyderabad.  Prior to this it had launched this in some other cities of India.  The passenger version of the Gio is again the passenger version of the Alfa with two wheels and a Mahindra grille instead of one wheel and no grille.  We take this as a positive development because autorickshaw drivers all across the country and especially so in Hyderabad drive very badly.  This owing to the handle bar and one wheel in the front in combination with a narrow body in the front that widens at the rear.  There have been so many instances when the auto drivers have tried to squeeze into a gap since the front seemed to go in only to find that the rest of the auto does not go in to that gap.  In the process they have happily put dents and scratches on other vehicles.  The handle bar, single front wheel and small turning circle has also meant that autos cut across lanes when you least expect them to and create traffic chaos. We at Riot Engine welcome four wheeler with steering wheels as a passenger transport.  The aesthetics of the Gio be damned its a four wheeler and we like it.  Now Tata please launch that Magic Iris and help the country rid itself of the scourge called the autorickshaw.

Picture Courtesy:BS Motoring.com

Casey Stoner is in the news again for the wrong reasons.  On the Monday test at Mugello post the Sunday race, Karel Abraham on the Cardion AB Ducati had a run in with Casey Stoner.  It is believed that Karel Abraham was waiting on the track to get a tow and when Stoner had passed him by he decided to follow.  Stoner who believed that Abraham was waiting for a tow immediately shut off his throttle and that led to his bike dramatically slowing down and Karel Abraham had to run into him from behind.  The episode took both to the pit lane where an infuriated Karel Abraham went to Stoner’s garage and an altercation ensued.  Mercifully before the whole thing turned to fisticuffs mechanics from both sides separated the duo.  Stoner off late has been in the news for punching Randy De Puniet and gesturing to Nicky Hayden claiming that all of them were trying to get a tow from him.

When the FIA announced the four cylinder, turbocharged engine formula, the former manager of Jacque Villeneuve who built the BAR team for Villeneuve, Craig Pollock announced the formation of a new venture called PURE which stood for Propulsion Universelle et Recuperation d’Energie (Universal propulsion and Recuperation of Energy) to provide inexpensive engines along with new KERS for customers who could not afford expensive engines.  But in the last week that engine formula has been given up for a V6 engine, but Pollock insists that the PURE project is still on and has made a change of direction towards the design and production of V6 turbo charged engines as required by the new rules.  Needless to say he has expressed disgust at the way in which the whole engine formula episode has been handled.

Williams F1 has become the second team in as many years to reject Cosworth as their engine suppliers and seek a partnership with Renault.  Last year it was Team Lotus (Tony Fernandes’ team) that broke its contract with Cosworth after just one year to sign a deal with Renault.  That deal has not done much for Team Lotus that continues to languish at the back of the field.  Now in a move that has been anticipated for sometime now, Williams have signed a deal for engine supply with Renault.  This is however different from the Team Lotus situation for in the past in the 1990s Williams and Renault produced some amazing cars that simply decimated competition.  The Williams Renault FW 15 is still considered to be the best ever Formula1 car that is loaded with technology.  So Williams is not a Team Lotus and their renewed partnership with Renault is likely to rekindle a great deal of nostalgia and expectations.  However, both Williams and Renault have played down the possibilities that the partnership would bring.  The year 2012 could be the one that sees Williams returning to winning ways.  Fingers crossed.

The Hispania Racing Team that races at the absolute rear of the Formula1 grid has been bought over by Spanish Venture Capital firm Thesan Capital which itself is funded by the Nomura Bank of Japan.  The Hispania Racing Team has a chequered history.  It began life as Campos Meta1, a project that was headed by former racing driver Adrian Campos.  However due to inadequate funding Adrian Campos had to move over and sell his team to Jose Ramon Carabante who brought in Colin Kolles who lost his job with Force India F1 to put together a team very quickly.  Kolles delivered and the car though totally untested had made it on to the grid last year against all expectations.  Indian driver Karun Chandok was contracted to the team but only drove in a handful of races with his sponsorship drying out and he was replaced by Sakon Yamamoto.  The other driver of the team was Bruno Senna, the nephew of the late great Ayerton Senna.  This year saw HRT dropping both Senna and Yamamoto and the announcing of a line up of Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi.  Narain was taken on board in spite of his being in the wilderness for five years because he was able to take upto $8 million from the Tata group, which as been solidly behind him throughout his career.  Then last week came the news that Colin Kolles was going move aside as team Principal and also that Daniel Ricciardo who is contracted to Red Bull Racing would be driving Narain’s car starting this weekend at the British GP at Silverstone.  It was being said that Narain would be allowed to drive again only in the Indian GP.  And with the latest announcement that the Carabante family is out of HRT it is most likely that big time restructuring will start.  In all that what will happen to Narain is anybody’s guess.  HRT has been unlucky both for Karun and for Narain.

Motorbeam.com is conjecturing (claiming that there are rumours to this effect) that Honda could be considering the launch of the VTR 250cc motorcycle that is a v twin, is naked and uses a trelis frame that Ducati made so famous.  The bike looks like the Ducati Monster from some angles.  Motorbeam.com says that the price of this twin cylinder bike will also be around the 1.5 lakh mark but this motorcycle will offer about 30PS power and of course an extra cylinder.  Right now it is wishful thinking, but how we wish this is true.

Picture courtesy: motorbeam.com