Drag Racing: India’s New Fast And Furious

India has been a nascent market for drag racing for some years now. Though that changed in the year 2013 with the arrival of The Valley Run — a premium drag racing championship that ignited its engines at the Aamby Valley air strip in Lonavala. Usually held during early summer, this created a significant buzz among the racing community in the country. India Speed Week took birth in 2016, in Kolkata, at The Behala Flying Club airstrip and created an extravaganza out of drag racing as a motorsport. Sports sponsorship spending in India grew by around 19 per cent in 2016 to Rs 6,400 crore as opposed to the preceding year (Rs 5,363.3 crore) and accounted for 11.5 per cent of the total Indian advertising expenditure, according to an ESP Properties’ study.

Early this year, India Speed Week and The Valley Run decided to partner together and up the tempo by conceiving a series that is now known as India Speed Week Drag Race Cup. Round 1 was held at The Valley Run in Lonavala and for the other two rounds could go down South by later this year. In an exclusive interview with BW Businessworld, Sabeer Ahluwalia, COO, India Speed Week, shares his insights on the future of Drag Racing in India.

Tell us more about the India Speed Week Drag Race Cup?
The India Speed Week Cup consists of three rounds of Drag races. The Valley Run 2017 will be the first round of ISW Cup 2017. The other two rounds will be announced shortly.
This year, there will be four ISW series winners in the Indian Bike, Indian Car, Foreign Bike and Foreign Car categories.

The prize money associated with the event is significantly huge and is a grand platform, considering it is being held for the first time in India. The estimated kitty this year is over Rs 65,00,000 lacs, so that should be an indicator of the stakes at hand, for this sport.

Drag Racing as a concept is new and not very popular in India, what is your strategy to popularise this in 2017?
To pep up and popularise Drag Racing in India, we have included the following elements:

Auto Expo: A one-of-its-kind automotive show, Auto Expo provides a unique platform to showcase a plethora of flagship luxury cars like the British-patented Rolls Royce and Aston Martin, the Italian Grand line-ups like Lamborghini and Ferrari, German giants like Mercedes AMG and the American-born Mustang, to name a few.  Some indigenous superbikes like our very own Indian Motorcycles, Triumph, Suzuki and Kawasaki too have been a noteworthy part of the Auto Expo, previously.

The glitz and glamour of the event are not just limited to the automotive beauties but trickles down to witnessing a starry ensemble of celebrities as well. Biggies from Bollywood and from the world of sports like John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Bhaichung Bhutia and many more stalwarts from their fields were present to crank up our last exposition.

Rickey Gadson, unarguably the most decorated drag racer ever, 11 times Drag Race World Champion, to be specific, conducted invaluable workshops with the racers’ community, dwelling on significant international aspects and features of Drag Racing.

No event is complete without music to keep the mood on a pulsating level, and our show too, witnesses live bands playing peppy tunes through the day.

In future, we plan to invite and collaborate with many more eminent sports personalities and celebrities and partner with a leading sports broadcasting network, to take this event to a wider audience footprint across the country.

What are the brands you already have on board and what genre of sponsorship you are looking forward.
We are the proud exhibitors of some of the most distinguished supercar brands such as: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Maserati, Mini Cooper, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Mustang, AMG, Land Rover and among superbikes: Harley Davidson, Triumph, Indian Motorcycle, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Polaris, KTM. Additionally, there is also active participation from SKODA, Chevrolet, Tata Motors, Renault, Honda and Mahindra.

Here, I must add that the American film ‘Fast & Furious’– which is all about street racing, launched its 8th film in the series with posters and on-site publicity material at our event. Red Bull and Coca-Cola came on board as our beverage partners.

Going forward, for the upcoming event, we will be more than happy to welcome brands from the FMCG and F&B categories that can connect their personalities with our target group. For example, deodorants, hosiery, battery brands, automobile oils & lubricants, energy drinks, sports and sport-related brands, tyres, banks, insurance companies, retail chains, hospitals, mobile phone and telecom are all categories that we consider partnering and associating with.

How do you assess the current market for a sport like Drag racing in India?
Drag Racing is a Billion Dollar industry when it comes to the US. Indians thus far have witnessed the madness of traditional sports like cricket, football and now even kabaddi, to an extent. But with the advent and accessibility of these adrenaline-pumping mean machines amongst the young and aspiring ‘yuppy’ generation, Drag Racing is soon going to accelerate itself up to the top of the charts. On our part, we have committed ourselves to a rather fast and furious growth!

You see, each of us has grown up experiencing the fun of racing in some form or the other, since our childhood. As kids, we were crazy about motorbike races but did not have a structured platform, in those days. Our only avenues were commercial films and then via ‘foreign’ television channels that beamed the sport intermittently. Through ISW, our aim is to offer that much-needed platform to bridge the gap between the desire to race and convert the passion into an accessible sport. Our aim is to eventually take drag racing out of the ambit of motor enthusiasts and the racing community and reach a wider section of the populace.

Our target would be to capture a huge portion of the market share that has been the domain of categories associating themselves with on-ground sports and creates a prominent and much more actively engaging market via motorsports.

What is your vision for ISW Drag Race Cup, what kind of IP are you looking forward to building with it?
To sum up our vision, most of which have been outlined above, Drag Racing needs to be both, promoted and popularised, not just among the youth but also among women and men of all social strata. While cricket will remain the top draw as far as the mass appeal is concerned, we are poised to race ahead as a much sought-after international sport in our country, as the new emerging India – much like us, is also witnessing an all-round spurt of adrenalin. It is this very adrenalin that propels us as a nation, and as a sport.

In sum, Drag Racing is all about ENERGY and DRIVE. And it is this very ENERGY and DRIVE that we have instilled within us to be able to race with Drag Racing to the top of the most sought-after sporting activities in India. With the coverage that enthusiastic media such us yourself is giving us, the day is not too far when our vision will be realised.