Skip to main content

Narain Karthikeyan racing to NASCAR

Kakarla Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan wants to compete in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series.

Along the way, he wants to co-opt 1.2 billion of his countrymen into following stock-car racing.
Karthikeyan became the first India native to break onto the NASCAR circuit in March when he finished 13th in a Camping World Truck Series event. He'll race again on Sept. 25 in the Smith's Food & Drug Stores 350 in Las Vegas.

"I think that NASCAR has a huge potential market in India, and I feel that I have a great opportunity to introduce India to NASCAR," Karthikeyan said. "I'm pretty confident that the Indian will thoroughly enjoy the excitement, adrenalin-charged atmosphere and sheer bumper-to-bumper racing that is NASCAR."

Karthikeyan shares this vision with the man who offered him the chance to drive stock cars -- rookie owner Miguel Abaroa of Starbeast Motorsports. Abaroa plucked Karthikeyan from the Formula 1 circuit with the ambitious goal of tapping into India's sports culture and going global.

"Not only do we want to build a championship-caliber NASCAR team, but we also want to create a bridge between these two countries," Abaroa said. "We want to bring a new option to people [in India] who follow sports."

But first, Karthikeyan must master the art of stock-car racing, after spending nearly 20 years as an open-wheel driver in Europe and Asia. From the bumping and scraping to looser handling to night racing, it's been, well, a bumpy ride.

"It's taking a bit of getting used to," said Karthikeyan, who also has posted some of his struggles on his
Twitter account. "It's a completely different form of racing."
Inspired by Juan Pablo Montoya, likely the most successful convert from F-1 to stock cars, Karthikeyan says racing is in his blood and the challenges are just potholes. Born in Coimbatore, a city in south India known as the country's cradle of motor sports, his father was a successful open-wheel driver at the regional and national levels.

Karthikeyan began racing on open-wheel circuits when he was 15, eventually becoming the first India-born driver to win a European series championship and to race a Formula 1 vehicle. That success made Karthikeyan a natural choice for Abaroa, who was looking for a pioneer.

"Narain Karthikeyan racing for NASCAR is just one of the many steps being taken to increase its appeal over a wider and more international audience base. He epitomizes the new breed of Indian sportsmen who have the confidence, abilities and skills to compete with the very best in the world." said ESPN network Executive Vice President for Programming Mautik Tolia.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kamma Cine Heroes

1) N.T.Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni  11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni  37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana 39) Akkineni Naga Chaitanya 40) Nani (Ghanta Naveen Kum...

Kamma Movie Directors

List of Kamma Movie Ditrectors 1) Gudavalli Ramabrahmam 2) Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasad (LV Prasad) 3) Kovelamudi Bapayya 4) Veeramachineni Madhusudhana Rao 5) Kovelamudi S.Prakasa Rao 6) Kolli Pratyagatma 7) G.Sambasiva Rao 8) Tammareddy Krishnamurthy 9) Mannava Balayya 10) Tatineni Prakasa Rao 11) Tatineni Rama Rao 12) Tatineni Prasad 13) Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao 14) Gutta Ramineedu 15) Kolli Hemambaradhara Rao  16) Uppalapati Visveswara Rao 17) Tripuraneni Maharadhi 18) Tripuraneni Gopichand 19) Tottempudi Krishna 20) Madala Ranga Rao 21) Siva Nageswara Rao 22) Uppalapati Narayana Rao 23) P.Sarat 24) A.Mohan Gandhi 25) Bezawada Gopal 26) T.Kranthi Kumar 27) Maganti Vijaya Bapineedu 28) Tammareddy Bharadwaj 29) Akkineni Kutumba Rao 30) K.Vasu 31) Edara VV Satyanarayana 32) Muppalaneni Siva 33) Yalamanchili VS Chowdary 34) Theja Jasti 35) Sreenu Vytla 36) Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli 37) Vemulapalli Srikanth 38) AS Ravikumar Chowdary 39)...

J.P. Morgan Invests $110M In Soma Group

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is investing $110 million or around Rs 500 crore in Hyderabad-based Soma Group (Rajendra Prasad Maganti, Managing Director), which is involved in construction and development of infrastructure projects in the transportation, hydel power and water resource sectors. J.P. Morgan, which raised an $860 million Asian infrastructure fund last year, will invest in the company in two tranches, as per this report. SRGR Law Offices advised Soma while Amarchand & Mangaldas advised JP Morgan, the report has stated, quoting one of the legal partners involved in the deal. -mail queries and phone calls to reach out to Soma Group and J.P. Morgan spokesperson did not elicit any response till the time of posting this story. Although the specifics of the investment cannot be determined, it may have been done for the funding of Soma’s highway projects unit, which holds its portfolio of BOT (build, operate, transfer) projects in the highways and road sector. Earlier ...

G.D.Naidu, first generation Kamma Industrialist

G. D. Naidu (Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu) was an Indian Inventor and engineer who is sometimes referred as the Edison of India. He is credited in manufacturing the first electric motor in India. His contributions were primarily industrial and span the fields of electrical, mechanical, agricultural (Hybrid cultivation) and automobile engineering. First of all he is a scientist but he studied up to only third standard. Naidu was born on March 23rd , 1893 , in Kalangal, near Coimbatore. He began his transport business in 1920 , with the purchase of a passenger auto-coach. He drove it for the service between Pollachi and Palani. In a few years, his United Motor Service (UMS) owned the most efficient fleet of public transport vehicles in the country. In 1937, the first motor to be produced in India, was brought out from G D Naidu's UMS factory. He invented an electric razor - Rasant - that gave users far more shaves than other existing options, in the international market. Among his ot...

LRG Naidu - A Socially Responsible Entrepreneur - Donar

Lakshminaickenpalayam Ramaswamy Govindasamy Naidu ( 1894 - 1970 ) was born as the fourth child to Ramaswamy Naidu and Chinnasamy Ammal on the 7 th of January 1894. L.R.Govindasamy Naidu was popularly known as LRG Naidu and he was an entrepreneur with a vision which encompassed several aspects of commerce and social life. He was closely associated with the Industrial Scientist GD Naidu from his early days. LRG Naidu married Ranganayaki Ammal and couple made Tirupur their home from the year 1924. The couple was blessed with four dynamic sons and a daughter Vijayalakshmi who was married to V.N.Ramachandran of Premier Mills.   It was from Tirupur that he grew from good to great and he ensured that his enterprises and policies were built to last. His Vijayalakshmi Motor Service,City Mofussil Transports and Tirupur Karur Transports were headquartered at Tirupur and the other bus company Madura Public Conveyance from his stable had 40 buses and the operations where centered around D...

List of 30 Kamma Billionaires and rankings

The IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021 shows that India has more than 1,000 individuals who have a net worth of  ₹ 1,000 crore or more across 119 cities. The cumulative wealth in the country has gone up by 51 per cent, while the average wealth has also increased by 25 per cent, the report by Hurun India said. 30 Kamma business and industrialists finds place in the list from AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. 14. Murali Divi Rs76,000 crores Divis Laboratories 179. Venkateswarlu Jasti 9,600 crores Suven Pharma  190. Veeraiah Chowdary Nannapaneni 9,100 crores NATCO Laboratories  209. Chava Satyanarayana 8,400 crores Laurus Labs 264. Satya Nadella 6,200 crores Microsoft 368. Mandava PrabhakaraRao 4,300 crores Nuziveedu seeds 377. Ella KrishnaMurthy 4,100 crores Bharat Biotech 384. Doppalapudi Bhaktavatsala Rao 4000 crores Privi Speciality Chemicals 398. Galla Ramachandra Naidu  3,900 crores Amara Raja Batteries  398. Chinta VisveswaraRao 3,900 crores...

List of Kamma Cine Heroes (Updated)

List of Kamma Movie stars: 1) Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni (Mutyalamuggu fame) 11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni 37) Myneni Sarvanand  38) Daggubati Rana...

Munu Adhi: Former Speaker Tamilnadu Assembly and 4 times MLA

Munu Adhi (Born 4 September 1926, Died 21 June 2005) born at Tambaram near Chennai - Tamilnadu.  Mr Munu Adhi started his political career as a member of the Socialist Party in 1945. He joined the DMK in 1953 and was elected to the Tamil Nadu Assembly for four consecutive terms, in 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1977.  Having begun his political career with the DMK, the four-time Member of the Legislative Assembly, switched his loyalty to the AIADMK in 1972 when M G Ramachandran founded the party, after breaking away from the DMK.  For the fourth time, he was elected to the state Assembly in 1977 when the AIADMK, headed by MGR, came to power for the first time and Munu Adhi was made the Speaker of the Assembly. He held that post till 1980. He continued his loyalty with the AIADMK till 1996 after which he sided with S Thirunavukkarasu, a former AIADMK minister, who floated his own party which subsequently merged with the BJP.  The Adhi College of Engineering ...

List of Kamma Chief Ministers & Governors

Sri.Edpuganti RaghavendraRao List of Kamma Chief Ministers: 1. Bollini Munuswamy Naidu:  (Primie Minister) Chief Minister of Madras State - 1930-34 2. Sir.E.Raghavendra Rao:  Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (Central Province ) - 1936-37 3. Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao: Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh during 1983, 1984-89 and 1994-1995 4. Nadendla Bhaskara Rao: Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh - 1984 5. Nara Chandra Babu Naidu: Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh during (1995-99 1999-2004) and 2014-  List of Kamma Governors: 1. Sir.Edpuganti .Raghavendra Rao, Governor, Central Province and Berar (1935-36) 2. P.Ramachandran (Tamilnadu), Governor, Kerala (1982-88) 3. P.S.Rama Mohana Rao, Governor, Tamilnadu (2002-2004) 4. Vadlapatla.Rama Devi, Governor, Himachal Pradesh (1997-99) Karnataka (1999-2005) 5. Kambhampati Haribabu Governor, Mijoram (2021 - 

Gaddam Meghana elected as MP to the 10th Youth Parliament of New Zealand

Meghana Gaddam with Waikato MP Tim van de Molen at St Peter’s School in Cambridge Meghana Gaddam lives in St Kilda and is holidaying with family in India. Her parents are from Tanguturu - Prakasam District, Aandhra Pradesh. She was St Peter’s School - Cambridge head girl this year and excelled through her studies and extracurricular activities including volunteering for two years at the Refugee Orientation Centre Trust in Hamilton and contributing to the Model United Nations. As part of Meghana’s Head Girl role, her responsibilities included planning the Waipā Youth Awards, chairing the student executive and leading the prefect team. She intends doing either a Bachelor of Property / Bachelor of Commerce in economics and finance conjoint, or a bachelor of property / bachelor of global studies in international relations and business next year, at Auckland University. Van de Molen said Meghana’s four-minute video, where she gave her  opinion on issues facing youth in the Waikato, was...