130 entries, 18 races: India's national motorcycle racing championship holds round 3 at Chennai from 30 October to 1 November

India's biggest road racing meeting of the month is not abroad. It is at the Madras International Circuit, where the MRF Indian National Racing Challenge 2W runs its third round from 30 October to 1 November 2026. Organised by the Madras Motor Sports Club, the round has 130 entries and 18 races on the schedule, and it comes after a six week gap since round 2 on 13 September.

That is a big grid by Indian standards, and it is spread across the national classes and the Petronas one-make cups that feed them. The premier category is Super Sport 301-400cc Open. Pune's Sarthak Chavan leads it with three wins from four starts, with Chennai's Rakshith Dave second and Bengaluru's Chiranth Vishwanath third. All three ride for Petronas Racing, and all three are teenagers, which tells you where the depth in Indian racing is coming from right now.

The names to follow this weekend

In Super Stock 301-400cc, Kabilesh Rajini Krishnan of Chennai has won three in a row. He is 16, and he now gets a second job this weekend. Rahil Pillarisetty of RACR misses round 3 after surgery on his arm following a crash in round 2, and Kabilesh takes that seat on a Yamaha R3 prepared by his father, Rajini Krishnan, an 11 time national champion. A premier class debut on a bike built by your own father is the kind of story Indian racing produces more often than people outside the paddock realise.

The other perfect record belongs to Ann Jennifer. The former women's national champion from Chennai has won all four Super Stock 165cc Intermediate races this season for Motul Sparks Racing, in a mixed grid.

In the one-make cups, the Petronas Expert class on the Apache RR 310 has Rajender Beedani of Hyderabad and Kamal Navas of Chennai on two wins each. The Rookie class on the RTR 200 is level too, with 16 year old Dev Agastya of Bengaluru and Vignesh Pothu of Mancherial on two apiece. Poojitha Anil Kumar of Bengaluru has two wins in the women's class on the same bike.

Event chairman and race director Manoj Dalal said the competition has been fierce up and down the grid and across all categories.

Why the one-make cups matter

These are not showpiece races. The 165cc and 200cc classes run on versions of bikes that sell in lakhs in India, and the ladder from a one-make cup to the national championship to the Asia Road Racing Championship is the only realistic path an Indian rider has. Chavan and Vishwanath have both raced in Asia on TVS machinery. Rajini Krishnan's 11 titles came off the same ladder. Entry costs are a fraction of what car racing demands, which is why a 16 year old can be on a competitive national grid.

The weekend also clashes with the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang, which runs on the same 30 October to 1 November dates. Marc Marquez goes there on 365 points with Jorge Martin on 355, and Martin's participation was in doubt after he fractured his right forearm in the Phillip Island sprint. If you want to watch both, the Chennai races are the ones you can actually go and stand next to.

Sources

• 130 entries set for INRC 2W Round 3 in Chennai
• MRF Indian National Racing: Kabilesh, Ann Jennifer continues winning run
• MotoGP in Sepang: The schedule for the 2026 Malaysian Grand Prix