It’s barely 10 in the morning and the road to the airstrip at Aamby Valley near Lonavala, where India Speed Week’s (ISW) Valley Run 2017 drag races are being held, is choked. Aprilia, BMW, Kawasaki and Suzuki superbikes are stuck with Lamborghinis, Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches, all trying to get in.
On the barricaded quarter mile of the tarmac action has already hotted up. Cars and bikes of all sizes are slugging it out in 10-plus categories. Bikes with tuned 125cc engines to those with 1,000-plus cc, everything has a class to compete in. It’s the same for cars with modded one-litre Zens to Porsches and 5.2-litre Lamborghini Huracans.
ISW is Amit Kumar Modi’s baby and it’s already in its second year. And this year he has turned it into a three-event series starting with the Valley Run. The finale is likely to be in Calcutta with the middle event possibly in Delhi or Hyderabad.
This year there will be four ISW series winners in the Indian Bikes, Indian Cars, Foreign Bikes and Foreign Car categories. They will be on contract with ISW, which will maintain their bikes, make ISW participation in 2018 free, and also give them cash prizes, which will be a maximum of Rs 3 lakh each.
The total kitty this year is over Rs 60 lakh. Drag race training camps are also on the cards. The ISW series will be big,
Modi promises.
Text & photographs: Abhijit Mitra
