CEOs Battle it Out on Karting Track

A clash of the titans, but of a different kind! Come November, the titans of the industry will clash here, albeit, on the karting tracks.

Major chieftains of the industry will be participating in the “Celebrity and CEO Go-Karting Event,” which will be held on the sidelines of the J.K. Tyre National Go-Karting Championship being held at Runway 9 in Kompally, Secunderabad, on November 4th and 5th.

Announcing this, Sanjay Sharma, Head of J.K. Tyres Motorsports Division, said that CEOs of more than 70 companies here are being invited to participate in the event.

Among the list of invitees are Dhanjibhai Savla of Mahavir Hospitals, K.S. Raju of Nagarjuna Group of Industries, G.P. Surana of Surana Group, Rajeev Reddy of Country Club and Secunderabad Club’s Krishna Das, Venkat Ram Reddy of Deccan Chronicle, Gautam Jain of Pokarna Granites, etc. GTB’s Ramesh Gelli, Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju have been invited too, but will not be participating.

Kiran Mody of Runway 9 says he expects at least 25 CEOs and celebrities to participate in the event: “We expect at least 3 grids of 8 karts each.”

Shobana Kamineni, CII (AP) chairperson, and M.K. Agarwal of Gati, besides Vikram Singhania of J.K. Industries have already confirmed their participation.

Kamineni, who has a mini dirt track at her farmhouse in Himayatnagar and often does go-karting, said: “It sounds like fun.”

Agarwal, who doesn’t find enough time, but is not new to go-karting, is also excited about the event. “It’s a different kind of ball game. We usually may not agree, but this will be exciting. We’ll also get a chance to try out the stunts we see on motor-racing on television.”

This kind of awareness among corporates will augur well for the sport, which is already tremendously catching on with people in Hyderabad, feels Sharma.

“The age group of the CEOs has been coming down in the past few years. The stressed-out CEOs need to chill out somewhere, and they love adventure. This kind of event helps the JK endeavor to promote motor sports and expose other corporates to the game. More awareness brings in more sponsorship into the game,” Sharma says.

In Chennai, he says, when a similar competition was held last year, the response among the CEOs was amazing. Phil Spender of Ford Motors decided to sponsor Narain Kartikeyan during the event. This happened because of Spender’s exposure to Indian motor sport, he says.

Modi, however, feels that it’s more about spreading awareness of the sport than about sponsorship.

According to him, the go-karting fever is catching on in the city quite fast. Runway 9, he says, gets an average of 300 visitors a day. Around weekends, we might even get around 900 visitors. “We expect it to grow to 500 visitors a day in a year’s time,” he says.

Earlier, motor sports – rallying, racing and karting – were restricted to the rich and the famous. Now with the entry of go-karting, it has reached the layman also. And especially in Hyderabad, things are changing; it’s the city of the future, Sharma says.

It is the healthy go-karting trends here that prompted the sponsors – J.K. Tyres, Mahindra, Overdrive, Caltex, AXN Action TV, and the organizers – Sportscraft -- to hold the inaugural round in Hyderabad.

The qualifying rounds begin on November 2. The finals will be held on November 5. Two finalists from this event will be participating in the grand finale in Delhi.