Interview: Arvind Pangaonkar, Head - Team TVS Racing

TVS Motor Company has been involved in motorsports for over three decades, starting first with racing 50cc mopeds and then developing an altogether independent racing arm, calling it TVS Racing. Today's TVS's experience and knowledge of how bikes perform at the racetrack has found its way to product development - across all categories of TVS products.

Performance is a key element of product development at TVS, and TVS Racing continues to provide valuable inputs from the racetrack and implement them in new products. For the past two years, TVS has been participating in the grand-daddy of motorsports - the Dakar Rally. In 2017 too, TVS Racing will partner with Sherco at the Dakar, considered the world's toughest and longest rally. In 2017, Aravind KP will be participating in the Dakar as the TVS factory team rider. Aravind has also been awarded with the NDTV Car and Bike Motorsport Award 2017.

We put some questions to the Head of TVS Racing, Arvind Pangaonkar to understand the future of motorsports and how it influences product development at TVS Motor Company.

(Aravind KP, Sherco TVS rider for 2017 Dakar Rally)

1. What has been the journey for TVS Racing like?

TVS Motor Company made its debut in racing in the year 1983 with its 50 cc mopeds in the arena of road racing. Five years later, the racing arm was termed as TVS Racing. We started with moped racing back in the early 80s with our 50cc mopeds notching up unbelievable speeds of 105 kmph.

Over the years, TVS Racing has grown drastically; the team has participated and won several road racing events, motocross and dirt track. We have won over 175 Championships till date. Today, TVS Racing is home to some of the finest racers in the country. Some of the prominent championship the team participates in are Desert Storm, Raid de Himalaya, Dakshin Dare, Indian National Rally Championship, National Supercross Championship, Gulf monsoon rally, etc. We also participate in various motocross and supercross championships in Sri Lanka.

The year 2015 was a landmark year when we decided to go global and participate in Dakar. TVS Racing has a collaboration with the racing department of Sherco, France. Our engineers and mechanics worked with Sherco to prepare motorcycles for Dakar in 2015 and 2016. This year TVS factory team rider, Aravind KP, will be participating in Dakar 2017.

(Aravind KP in action)

2. TVS has been one of the first two-wheeler companies to get into Motorsports. How has this association with motorsports influenced the TVS brand?

TVS Motor Company has been one of the first two wheeler company to foray in professional racing in India. We are the first manufacturer in the country to launch One Make Championship in India in 1994.

The motive was to recruit budding talent in racing and provide a platform to them to showcase their talent and build career in motor racing. Constant experience and exposure to the racing track helped us come up with Apache series of products. The series has been doing well in the premium segment and is a perfect example of our re-inventing brand image. Our Apache brand is synonymous with performance on the racing track.

(National Supercross Event)

3. Clearly, this association with motorsports must have resulted in introducing bikes which have some technological learnings from motorsports. Can you elaborate on this?

We have applied our learnings from the track to produce high performance machines. Our experience on the racing track helps us provide valuable data, design inputs, development of reliable motorcycle models, excellent vehicle dynamics & handling etc. That means what we learn on the race track at TVS Racing, we implement in the R&D to improvise the performance of our bikes. The evidence of this is seen in today's Apache RTR series technically born on the racetrack. The latest TVS Apache RTR 200 4V a result of implementation of our learning on the track.

(Aravind KP, Sherco TVS rider for 2017 Dakar Rally)

4. What is the future of TVS Racing?

We are committed to encourage motorsport in India and will continue to be the breeding ground for some of the best racers in the country. We will continue to share the inputs from the racing track to product development and improve the breed of our products. Besides key racing events in India, we participate in races in Sri Lanka and now global rally events like Aragon Baja 2016 and Dakar 2017.

5. Do you see more and more products being influenced by motorsports?

TVS Racing has helped improve the breed of products for us since its inception and we will continue to do that. Learning from the track helps enhance the performance and handling capabilities of our products. Our TVS Apache series of motorcycles have been made completely basis inputs received from the racing track.

6. What are these products - primarily commuter class bikes, mid-level performance bikes or even all-out race bikes?

Our experience on the race track has helped accelerate life testing of our products besides providing other valuable inputs. We have been using inputs from the racing track to work on all our products in general. We have also come up with a specific range of products which have been tried and tested by racers all through and made as per their feedback (Apache series of products. High performance is the key feature of these products).