Boogity Boogity Boogity !!! Let's go racing Boys!!!

The scarlet red Ferrari with Michael Schumacher behind the wheels cannonballing through the race track under the Indian skies was one of my persistent yearnings ever since I started following the high velocity and adrenaline driven sport. I’d never thought even in my wildest events of woolgathering that this would ever come alive, and it turned out to be right. Schumacher retired from the sport, Ferrari was no longer the same force to reckon, the dream had collapsed. But there was a twist in the tale.

As the sport started enthralling more masses in the subcontinent, the Indian bond became stronger and stronger, to begin with we had an Indian (read narain karthikeyan) driving a Jordan, though the constructor was well over its golden period, but it meant that India began its pursuit of making a mark in the motorsports arena. A similar feat was repeated by a very promising young lad, Karun Chandhok as he drove for Hispania racing in 2010, India was making its presence felt on the F1 circuit. Amidst all this we got our own team, Force India was the greatest impetus that Indian racing ever got. Things were shaping up for something huge and then something happened that must have knocked any ardent Indian F1 fan off his feet, an INDIAN GP!!!!  It was the greatest piece of news that could have come, it was not exactly what I had desired for, but it was nothing less than a dream come true, my dream was partially realized.

But things weren’t the same earlier, A decade back, the Indian motorsport fan formed a smidgen of the sports lunatic fraternity; the sports column barely had anything on F1 apart from a tiny literature on the left column covering the race results. Thanks to Star Sports we had the live coverage of the entire F1 season on Indian television; the sports channel along with ESPN has definitely played a huge part in the evolution of the Indian sports freak, helping him move on from the traditional Indian sports like cricket and hockey to NBA and EPL.  Who would have imagined that we’d have scuffles in schools over some English football clubs, having names that we only heard of when we opened up our high school geography books, the sports captain of the school wearing a number 23 for his basketball match. FEDex was no longer just a courier company, this was the new Indian sports fan, who cared to stay awake all night long just to catch Tiger woods tee off to capture the Augusta Masters.  Sport was given a whole new definition by these channels.

Let’s not digress and come back to where we started, an India GP announced to the world that India had arrived; it was an ostentatious display of India’s wealth too, the world realized that there was more to India than just snake charmers and Delhi bellies.

And unlike the CWG, there wasn't a repeat of abiding images of a collapsed footbridge and dirty toilets in a run up to the opening ceremony; we managed to pull it off. The Buddh international circuit is ready and the Jaypee group deserves all the accolades coming its way.


It was every Indian motorsport fan’s dream to watch 20 odd cars assembling at the start line with their engines revving and roaring to go. Come October 30th, when the five red lights go off along with Steve Slater signaling the start of the first ever Indian Grand Prix in his usual aplomb, the dream would have been lived.