The most cruel ,exhaustive, punishing, mentally and physically challenging brutal race, Dakar. The mother of all rallies, has something new this time and you know what? For the first time in Indian history an Indian bike manufacturer is going to participate in Dakar. Any guesses about the manufacturer? Yes, you are right it's none other than our own TVS, the daring TVS has decided to make us Indians Proud and taking the challenge of Dakar. You know what every Indian bike manufacturer is thinking something different, in the recent article of BikesIndia we talked about Hero participating on World Superbike Championship and were talking about the other Indian companies getting encouragement from it, so see TVS has done it their way.
So wait for January 2015, when TVS will participate in Dakar rally in the form of the "Sherco TVS Rally" Factory team. TVS racing has always held an important place in off-road motorsport in India, and this time they have taken a bold step by participating in Dakar but not alone, they are doing it with the help of France's Sherco Motorcycles, which makes Enduro bikes. Both the firms have been working on this project for quite sometime and they have come up with the 'RTR 450' .The French, Sherco Motorcycles has taken part in Dakar before, which will help TVS Racing as its partner for the coming rally 'Dakar' 2015 and two experienced French riders of Dakar 'Alain Duclos' and 'Fabien Planet' have been appointed for this. But winning or losing is not a factor here for now but completing Dakar is a sort of win in itself. TVS has two obvious reasons to participate in Dakar:
1. To push the brand globally
2. To learn and improve its own racing division, and to help develop future RTR bikes.
TVS is surely going to gain a lot of experience from the race and will make a lot of advancement in its machines. Let us all hope TVS & Hero move ahead in its motive and encourage more Indian brands as well.
Wow! Indian bike manufacturers are thinking something different rather than just manufacturing machines, isn't it?
By: Shafqat Khan