How to start one-make motorcycle racing in India, and what it costs

Bring the bike you already ride

You do not need a race licence or a race bike to find out if you can ride fast enough to matter. TVS Racing's Apache Racing Experience is open to any owner of an Apache RTR 160, 180, 200 or RR 310, and even to a blood relative of an owner if the owner signs a handwritten no objection letter. You register at tvsmotor.com/tvsracing, pay a non refundable fee of ₹1,500, and turn up on your own bike with your own helmet and gloves. TVS feeds you, trains you and rents you the rest of the gear. Riders who make the final selection round get to ride TVS's own race prepped machines instead. The programme now runs across 20 cities in 4 countries, India, Colombia, Mexico and Nepal, according to TVS Racing.

Honda and Yamaha run their own front doors into the sport. Honda's Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup, running since 2018, tests riders aged 13 to 18 on a Honda Navi and a CRF50 across ten cities, then grooms the fastest into the CBR150R One Make Championship at the Madras Motor Race Track, with Honda talking openly about grooming the best for Moto3 careers. Honda also slots a Hornet 2.0 one make class into the national championship, which started as a 15 rider invitation only grid in 2021 before opening to customers mid season. Yamaha's Yamaha One Make Racing programme is open to anyone with a driving licence, Yamaha owner or not, on identical Daytona kitted R15s that Yamaha supplies. It runs a Novice class capped at 100 entries and an Expert class capped at 15 as set by FMSCI, with Madras Motor Sports Club deciding who races in which class. A rider without an FMSCI competition licence can apply for one on the spot at the track.

What the next step up costs

The clearest costed example is TVS's own. When TVS first ran the Apache RR Cup, only riders who already had a podium finish in a national or one make race could apply, and only the 12 fastest riders at a timed selection session at the Madras Motor Race Track got a seat. Each of them then paid a refundable deposit of ₹5,000 against damage to the bike, an entry fee of ₹17,500 for five rounds of racing, and ₹25,000 in advance to cover a year of maintenance and repair on an identical race spec Apache RR 310.

TVS has widened that ladder since. Its 2026 edition runs separate Women's, Rookie and Apache RR 310 categories. Regional trials run from 17 January to 7 February 2026 in Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi and Kolkata, and the final selection happens at the Madras International Circuit from 15 to 17 May 2026. The Rookie class is for riders aged 15 to 21 on the Apache RTR 200, the Women's class races a race prepped version of the same bike, and the Apache RR 310 category stays reserved for riders aged under 30 with a podium already to their name.

Where the ladder leads

The top rung is no longer a purely domestic prize. TVS says it was the first Indian manufacturer to run a one make series abroad, and since 2020 its TVS Racing International Championship has raced the Apache RR 310 as part of the Asia Road Racing Championship calendar. In 2025 that series reached Europe for the first time, racing at Misano in Italy, with Indian riders Sarthak Chavan, Chiranth Vishwanath and Rakshit Dave on the grid. A rider who starts out on a showroom Apache at a city level Racing Experience day is, on paper, climbing the same ladder that put those three on a European grid.

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