Understanding India’s Track Day and Racing Culture with ISBK Racing: Watch Video

If you were to go back a decade and compare that time to now with respect to how people see motorcycles, you will see a vast difference. Yes, it still largely remains as a means to commute from A to B, but it is not just fuel efficiency that alone defines the motorcycle a buyer wants to buy. And this is prominent across segments. Be it the smaller capacity motorcycles or the high engine capacity ones, people are now looking at these two-wheeled machines as an extension of their personality and are willing to explore new avenues when it comes to gathering experiences on their motorcycle. As a result, we have seen the likes of single-cylinder, low cubic capacity engine-equipped, and yet extremely capable adventure tourers and performance-oriented products. And those who spend the big bucks, they too are buying all kinds of offerings and not just chrome-laided cruisers.

As a result of this, there is a certain track day culture that’s slowly, but steadily, spreading its wings across the country. The thing is, people have a lot more choices than before and are no longer holding engine capacity directly proportional to how ‘risky‘ that motorcycle would be. A big reason for that is there is now an understanding that with the proper skills, you can be safe and enjoy your hobby as well.

All of this has made way for riding schools to boom in terms of popularity as new and experienced riders alike wish to learn those exact skills and extract every bit of value from the fancy motorcycle they just got. And in order to do that safely and yet be able to go all out, track days have become the obvious choice. And yes, the ever-increasing safety concerns on public roads is a reason for this too.

So in order to understand how all of it started, we got into a conversation with Sreekumar Gopinadhan, aka ‘Poncho’, who is a coach at one of India’s biggest and fastest expanding riding schools – ISBK racing.

In our conversation, we find out what the ground zero was of the track day culture in India, how the riders undertaking these track days have changed over the years and what are the tips and the route for those who want to get in on this action.

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