High on racing

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When you work a When you have a regular job and a regular life, a trip to the race track can definitely spice things up.

But when you’re a woman in this situation and your fiancé hands you the key to his car asking you to give it a try, what do you do? If you are Ashika Menezes, you go race.

“Race just once and you’ll love it,” Ashika said. With over 27 races to her name, and 24 first place podium finishes in autocross and mud rallying, this racer from Bengaluru has been drifting her way up for last two years now.

A quality analyst at MindTree in Bangalore, Ashika’s race navigator is her fiancé, Lokesh Gowda. Also a racer, Lokesh is Ashika’s biggest motivator.

“Getting behind the wheel of a race ready car is like regular driving but when Loki took me to the track and handed me the keys, I was pumped.

I got behind the wheel and ended the race with a podium title. That almost instantly got me hooked,” said the driver who has been racing for two years now.

“I never realised two years back that I would be drifting through a tight corner or figuring out how to reduce the weight of my car,” said Ashika who is called the drift queen of Bangalore.

It was here in Coimbatore where she proved her mettle in the auto cross championship that was jointly held by the INRC and FMSCI.

She finished on top position in the ladies category. “I owe a lot of gratitude to my sponsors Motorsports Inc and PGA Motorsports, who have really chipped in with a lot of help,” she said.

There’s something about a dirt track that’s very exciting, Ashika said. “It does have a lot to do with the rough muddy terrain because if you balance the car well as you hit the corner and inch through the pedal and come out in one piece.

That really pushes my buttons. In fact, I am really looking forward to rallying on September 8. I heard that there are a lot of ladies who want to participate in the national tournament,” she said.