Volkswagen have said goodbye to the Polo Cup after five years and given participants a saloon to play with. We sampled their new machine.
It is a shame that motorsport is an expensive pastime because anyone with even a cursory interest in it should get to experience machines made for the purpose of racing. Television has, however, spoiled many into thinking that there is nothing beyond the very top of the motorsport pecking order; Formula One, MotoGP, World Rally Championship, Dakar Rally etc.
Motorsport starts at a much more basic level than that and technically all one needs is to own a car or a bike and set aside a course that needs to be covered in the shortest possible time. Doing just that, however, more often than not leads to the kind of hooliganism you see on public roads that leads to serious injury or death among the youth and other heavy-footed motorists. Organised competition, like in other sporting disciplines, is the aim for anyone looking to do it seriously.
Rallying – on two wheels or four – is the best that India has to offer as far as organised motorsport is concerned but even for complete novices, and those more attracted to racing on a circuit, there are ways to get behind the wheel and race in anger. The National Karting Championship allows kids barely ten-years-old to get started in motorsport, provided they can afford to do so.
STARTING IN TIN TOPS
Two car manufacturers have joined their two-wheel counterparts in holding one-make cup series where drivers are selected and then allowed to drive cars that are prepared to the exact same specification so that their talent is the only thing that separates who is fast and who is an also ran.
Volkswagen Motorsport India’s version has evolved from what was the Polo Cup in 2010, to the Polo R Cup from 2012 to what is now the Vento Cup. Feeling the need to keep things ‘fresh’, VW has decided that the next step for aspiring touring and sportscar racing drivers should be racing a saloon car and dealing with a car with bigger dimensions than the outgoing hatchback and more weight at the back too.
Having driven the Polo R Cup car back in 2012, getting behind the wheel of the new Vento Cup machine – albeit with the same 1.4-litre, 180bhp, TSI, petrol engine – is a similar experience in that both cars are quite forgiving for a novice like me.
ENTRY LEVEL TECH
Both drive experiences that were organized by VW, the first at the Buddh F1 circuit three years ago and this year at Coimbatore’s Kari Motor Speedway, were run in a way that the media got to sample a race-prepped manual gearbox car with no ABS and the updated machine with racing ABS and a DSG gearbox.
In both instances, the latter was akin to putting on a set of training wheels. While the process of selecting the right gear and braking at speed kept me on my toes, taking the same corners in the more advanced cars allowed me to focus a lot more on getting the line into the corners right.
That may not be ideal preparation for a beginner in motorsport but in reality the Vento Cup is supposed to be a marketing exercise for Volkswagen too, which showcases some of the technology used across the German marque’s range of products in India. And even though it is entry level, the entry fee range of Rs. 8 to Rs.14 lakh still takes some work to put together in a country like India.
Once you have the funds though, participating in the Vento Cup will allow you to give vent to your competitive urges in the knowledge that no other driver on the grid will have a technical edge over you. That’s what it’s about at the end of the day.
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