Pune: Less than a few hours before the budding racing talent met with a tragic accident, Akshay Patil was speeding through the tyre-lined Indi-karting circuit in Kharadi and in fact he won the Race 1 of the India’s last karting race of the season, the Indi-Karting Go-Kart race.
Sadly though, a field of 119 karters and the racing community was left in grief when the news trickled in of Akshay Patil’s fetal accident early on Monday night.
Reigning National champion Aaroh Ravindra had some technical issues and he qualified well down the order in 8th but Pune’s Akshay Patil drove a brilliant Race 1 to climb from fifth to win the race, while Jonathan Kuriakose and Aaroh came second and third respectively.
Race 2 was the reverse grid, where Aaroh showed his class starting from seventh, steadily climbed up the order in the 16 laps to win the race ahead of Rahul Deshpande and Monish Jain.
Eventually it was Aaroh who received the overall winner’s trophy, with Akshay Patil and Rahul Deshpande finishing runner up and third respectively, in the Pro Senior class. Jonathan Kuriakose won the Pro Junior followed by Mumbai’s Neil Gandhi.
Refreshing new faces
The Pro Cadet witnessed intense competition and there was very exciting racing across all 3 races. So close were the overall results that three racers were tied on points on top! Pune’s Sai Shiva Sankaran with a victory in the last race was first, ahead of Pune’s Ranvir Singh who also won a race. In third was Mumbai’s Hoshmand Elavia.
The Senior Amateur category meant for racers without prior success, was as usual hotly contested. Sarvesh Bode from Pune, Mumbai’s Sujosh Sen and Mohammed Raza Sheikh from Pune sealed the podium.
The Senior Open witnessed the highest number of entries with 21 participants. Karthik Muthuswamy from Bangalore won a really close race ahead of the Bhui brothers from Mumbai – Aman and Suraj.
Aman Singh Bhui (Chandrabhan Sharma College) won the Inter-College category ahead of Akshay More (Bandodkar College) and Asad Kadegaongar (Coplen University, Singapore). Pratham Chaoudhary (Fountain Gate) won the Inter School category ahead of Rohaan Aggarwal (Cathedral & John Connon) and Kshitij Mahajani (Bishops) was third.
Tragic news
The entire racing fraternity was shocked with grief, when early next morning news came in, of the passing away of Akshay Patil in a road accident near Empress Garden.
“Akshay finished overall runner-up in the Pro Senior Category and was a much loved and popular racer who would always be fondly remembered by the racing fraternity,” said Rayomand Banaji, 8-time National Karting champion and organiser of the event.
