Unseasonal showers failed to dampen the spirits of Ashwin Sunder and Saran Vikram who made history. Representing Rams Racing, the duo wasted no time in getting onto the track in the post lunch session to win the first ever JK Tyre National Enduro Championship today.

At the Madras Motor Race Track at Irrungattukottai, near Sriperumbudur, the rain virtually ground all activity to a standstill.

The new format of the championship is that the second race becomes reverse grid for the top eight like in F2, but with water on the track, pre-lunch activity was limited.

In the Enduro race leg one, only three teams of the 10 who entered finished. Run by Formula LGB Hyundai cars, the Enduro is a 90-minute race with two drivers per car with each driving no more than 22 minutes at a stretch. The rain, however, reduced the time to 65 and 15 minutes, respectively.

The key was to calculate and time one’s pit entry and exit in order to not log a penalty — one second more would result in incurring a five-second penalty. Most teams were new to the concept and struggled in combining the two aspects.

The two young sensations — Ashwin and Saran — from Chennai did well to complete 29 laps with a timing of 66:46:09, ahead of second placed duo of Narain Shankar and Karthik Shankar who ensured a Team Rams Racing one-two. Narain/ Karthik also completed 29 laps in a timing of 68:18:391.