Bhubaneswar, Feb. 15: Adventure sports here will get a fillip with the city set to host an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) championship in March.
Multiple competitions for college students will feature in the championship that will take will be hosted by Kalinga Motorsports Club.
The Mega ATV Championship is a four-day challenge for students who have designed and manufactured off-road vehicles that can be used on any terrain.
Students of engineering colleges design such vehicles as part of their co-curricular activities. Over 70 teams will bring their vehicles at the DLF Cyber City in the Chandaka Industrial Estate where the competition will take place.
"The event will be the biggest student-based motorsport competition based on real-life challenges. Student teams will compete with their automobile creations in a series of tasks and races," said Ramesh Mahapatra of Kalinga Motor Sports Club.
The vehicles will be judged in various categories such as parameters of designing that makes the ATV fit for disaster situations, acceleration, brake, stability and personal aggression test for which there will be rounds such as static inspection, dynamic inspection, drag race, flat dirt race, earthquake simulation, blackout race, flood simulation and land slide simulation. These will be conducted over a period of four days.
"The aim of the event is to promote good engineering practices in manufacturing these off-road vehicles, which have high utility, especially during disaster managementan emergencies," said Mahapatra.
Over 2,000 participants from 80 colleges across India, including institutes such as BITS Pilani, Pune University, Army Institute of Technology and many more, are taking part in the event. From Odisha, KIIT and ITER colleges are sending in teams.
Apart from the main events, there will be an auto expo, stunt show and pro-night session where professional racers and designers of ATVs will interact with students. The event will be hosted from March 4 to 7. Kalinga Motor Sports is hosting the event in association with Autosports India and supported by Federation of Motorsports Clubs of India.
