OVERDRIVE gets into competition mode with track tests of three top notch racing motorcycles which made their mark at Sriperumbudur. In a unique never-before-attempted test of its kind in India, Aspi Bhathena and Adil Jal Darukhanawala get to play with three pretty powerful toys all on one day: the potent but peaky two-strokes in the form of the Yamaha RX135 and TVS Shaolin plus the new ground-breaking TVS Fiero which heralds the advent of the four-strokers. So here goes, prepare to get slipstreamed...

Bike sport runs in the OVERDRIVE staffers' veins. Nay, Performance biking makes up the DNA of our editorial team and therefore it wasn't such a surprise when we decided to do things differently this month. As you will see we have speed and Performance as the prime movers in this issue and part of that exercise involved not just the track tests of the four production machines which Sirish and Aspi have put together (elsewhere in this issue) but also racer tests of the top modified machines which our lads hammered around the MMSC's Sriperumbudur circuit near Chennai.

I have always wanted this to happen but there is always a time and a place for everything goes the dictum and guess that's why such a test panned out appropriately for this fourth anniversary issue. Having in our fold Aspi Bhathena, only the second ever Indian motorcycle racer to have competed with distinction in the toughest motorcycle race meet in the world: the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races in 1987, made this task a bit easier. Aspi has tremendous racing experience, on all sorts of racing machines, at the MMSC's Sriperumbudur circuit, having won there more often than not and so having him to spearhead our racer test was the logical thing to do. Yours truly also took the controls but then the speed differential between Aspi and me was huge, to say the least, and therefore whatever I emote on the handling and the speed aspect is from Aspi's on-track experience.

The choice of machinery was made easier by the fact that the premier road racing class in the country employs modified series production motorcycles conforming to the Gp C regs of the FMSCI. We wanted the top racing bikes from different manufacturers and so the obvious first choice was the Yamaha RX135 of the brothers Raja and Raju, two of the most accomplished racers Chennai has produced in the last decade. Considering that Yamaha hasn't been consistent in supporting RX-mounted privateers in Indian bike sport, many shunned this excellent motorcycle as the perfect tackle for road racing in the face of support from TVS for both its own racing team as well as for privateers mounted on Shoguns and Shaolins. That should go to explain the 'Past' in the main title.

The 'Present' is exemplified by the TVS Shaolin, a production bike born out of the fruits of the company's racing activities with the Supra SS and the Shogun before it. The five-speed gearbox of the production Shaolin, as TVS race boss Arvind Pangaonkar never tires of telling anyone who cares to listen, was developed from the Supra SS limited edition special. The Shaolin became the mainstay of the TVS racing effort and remains so to this day. But the days of the two-strokes are numbered and the very first manufacturer to embark on the four-stroke route has again been TVS which has begun developing its Fiero for the 'Future'. On our request, TVS brought an example apiece of the Shaolin and the Fiero while Raja and Raju did us the singular honour by getting their RX135 racer shipshape for us to flog around the 3.6km circuit.