International Women’s Day: JK Tyre Motorsport head Sanjay Sharma discusses rise of women drivers in India-Sports News , Firstpost

Women in India have been making rapid strides in sport over the years, which can be gauged by the achievements of stars such as PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal in badminton, MC Mary Kom in boxing, Sakshi Malik in wrestling and the manner in which the India women’s cricket team is keeping the tricolour flying high with their massive improvements and performances.

One area where the growth had been relatively stunted for a long time was women’s motorsport in India. However, initiatives from organisations such as JK Tyre, a pioneer in the field of motorsport, have helped unearth a host of female racing talent in a sport that is traditionally dominated by men. Thanks to the initiatives of JK Tyre Motorsport, which was conceived in 1993 and would go on to establish the National Racing Championship four years later that is considered one of the most prestigious racing events in this part of the world, India has discovered stars such as Mira Erda ‚ the first Indian female driver to bag a podium in Formula 4.

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, Firstpost caught up with Sanjay Sharma, Head- Motorsport, JK Tyre & Industries, where the former rally driver discussed the contribution of his organization in helping grow women’s motorsport in India as well as the road ahead.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

How do you see the growth of women’s motorsport in India over the years and what has JK Tyre’s role been in that?

Luckily JK has played a role more by default. Because we started practising the sport before we took these positions of becoming sponsors and promoters and stuff like that. If you go back in time, our history is that we were first a rally team. And then, when we started evolving, we starting picking up championships and stuff like that.

So even way back in ‘90s, Renuka Kriplani, today a renowned journalist with Autocar, also started her life with us. She was a navigator on the JK Tyre rally team in ‘90s. So that’s how we always had this concept on our radar that whether we were practicing, whether we were playing the sport, whether we were organising it, whatever role we’ve played in this sport, we’ve always had women associated with us.

As soon as we introduced this Championship in ’97, at the same time we brought go-karting to India. One of the reasons to do that was not only to catch the kids young and start training them the way world does it, but also make this platform where it’s not about whether this is a boys’ game or a girls’ game. When there is a same kart, when there is a same track, how it works.

There is generally a situation in families where you have a boy and a girl, and usually they are a year or two or three apart in age. And when the kids started racing together in karting, the girls would beat the boys, because they all started from scratch. And for a very long time, the kids couldn’t understand how the hell was it happening, because these were the girls that used to play with dolls and the boys would play with cars.

That’s when it took them a little time to discover that even weight plays a role, and it became really, really popular with girls. So this is how our humble beginnings started.

As our belief there was no disparity among kids, so we started backing girls and putting them in the same grids, and there was no separate classes or prizes for them. And that’s where you see our success story to promoting women in motorsports started.

Have you faced any challenge or resistance from parents, society when it comes to bringing women and girls into motorsport in India?

You will be super surprised — never! And I have been involved in anything and everything. It’s also a blessing in disguise because culturally our kids, whether they are boys or girls, unlike their counterparts anywhere else in the world, when they step out, they are usually escorted by their grandparents. You know how our cultures are here and how protected our kids are.

Our 10-year-olds don’t take a tube and go 10 miles to a karting circuit. So that particular safety angle never came because whether it was a boy or a girl, we always observed that they had the backing of their parents, guardians, friends, some seniors. So I think this has been one of the backbones of how it all started.

And then as you progress, this is the best part about the sport or this goes for any sport, the result itself encourages the guardians. As I said in our case, there is nothing as long as the organiser has gone out of his way to make sure that the infrastructure created is equally good for the boys as well as the girls. By all that, I mean the privacy, the washrooms and stuff like that.

So as long as all that happens, there is absolutely no concern that anyone would ever have, and culturally we all have that kind of a mindset, whether it is me, you or anyone else, the organisers also go out of their way to make sure that the infrastructure for the girls are in place.

Talk us through the rise of Mira Erda? Would you say that she has been JK’s greatest find and could end up as the first Indian female superstar in this field?

Yes. She was the first girl who started and wherever she reached, she reached by design, and not by default. She kept winning and kept progressing. She was an extremely and extremely talented kid. Her parents need to be applauded because I have never ever seen her out on a race track or in any event without both her mother and father in tow. So that’s the kind of backing this kid has.

And whereas talent is concerned, right from her first go at a two-stroke kart, which was way back in a Greater Noida tarmac where she went into a barrier at a speed of some 60-70 kilometres an hour, and while half of us already had a heart attack, she came out and laughed as to why we oldies were worried. So from that day till her performance right up to Formula BMW level, hers is a very, very classic story.

And the best part is that she has now decided to open her own karting track. She owns two karting tracks — one is in Baroda and one is in Ahmedabad. It’s called Erda Racing. And she also endorses some brands. So this one in racing is a true superstar from my program.

Mira’s is an ideal story. She came into karting, she did four-stroke, graduated to two-stroke, kept winning, kept progressing, and won her place into the next stage, and not because she’s a girl or got some preferences. Now going forward, what her plans are, as of now she’s yet to, whether she wants to go abroad or not.

There are a lot of cases. There is a girl from Dehradun, Anushriya Gulati, she got picked up with some international program and her life started with some touring cars in London. But she’s not front of the grid. Mira, that’s why, is a classic example because she’s made it to the podiums beating the boys.

And let me tell you, the next in line is a girl from Himachal, her name is Shriya Lohia. She’s just finished her karting, and now she gets into JK’s program, and we’ve just appointed some tutors and her training programs. So she’ll start with domestic racing in this coming season, but at the same time, she will be prepared to be launched internationally because what happens is we learn from our experiences also.

If you go back in our experience with boys, you would notice that when Narain (Karthikeyan) peaked, with that age, we kept as a benchmark, and Karun (Chandhok) improved it. Let’s say Narain peaked at 24, Karun could peak at 21. But at the same time, Armaan (Ebrahim) could make it at 19. So all those things matter. So Shriya has to be trained for racing, but simultaneously has to be prepared to take the international events so years are not added unnecessarily to their careers.

What are some of JK Tyre’s objectives, both short and long term, as far as women’s motorsport in India is concerned?

There is a very nice programme of the FIA where the absolute raw talent is picked up in local countries and the event is called ‘Girls on Track’ where actually the girls with no pedigree have to come in and there is a school which tests their abilities. They go through a little bit of counselling, then they go into a little bit of fitness, then they go and test themselves with the speeds they can do. But absolutely kids who are raw.

So first time we organised this school in 2019, and the winner of the school, they go to France or wherever the international event is, totally paid by FIA. So first and foremost that programme has taken a little hit in the pandemic, that is going to be revived ASAP. This is our part one.

Second is that we have now shifted our gears and started practicing our sponsorship packages the way world does it. Earlier what used to happen was we had our own programmes, the kids would come out of our own programmes. Pehle Karting kiya, then he went on to domestic racing, then he won this, won that, he was 18, then he went to some foreign racing, we sponsored it, whether in part or full. This was a routine practice.

Now it has changed. Irrespective of whether he races with us or with anyone else, a talent is a talent. On that basis, we have now opened an academy which provides scholarship to a talent and this scholarship is fixed. For a kid who has just come out of any lowest level of racing, but is now venturing into a championship situation, either in region or internationally, he gets some 25,000 pounds in sponsorship. We don’t even ask what we get in return. This is purely a programme to give a boost to kids and now that we are in our second year, we’ll also start adding partners who will then also add on to the kitty. And then probably the sponsorship and all that will start, but as of now, this is where it is. And the same kid in his Year Two, when they progress and the chart is good, the 25,000 becomes 50,000.

So this is how a scholarship programme on a couple of tiers has been designed. In this scholarship programme, 20 per cent of the seats are reserved for girls. And why it is reserved is, god forbid the kids do not make it in the criteria, but just because it’s a mission with us, promoting women in motorsport, so they should not lose that spot. So that’s why I use the word reserve, but I pray that the girls make it to the grid on their talent and not just because they are girls.

Your message to budding female drivers?

It’s very simple. Motorsport is a combination of man and machine. Two together win and two together lose. It is absolutely nothing that it’s a boys’ game or a girls’ game. So we should start from karting and test ourselves. It’s like playing with speed. It’s for everyone, please come and have a go. And it’s absolutely safe, so everyone should participate in this form of the sport.

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