06 Dec 2019  |   05:15am IST

Transforming passions into careers

One of Asia’s largest biking festival, the ‘India Bike Week’, will feature a brainstorming session on how one can actually carve out a career out of the exciting world of motorsports. Here’s an opportunity to turn your hobby and passion of bike-riding into a thriving career

Team Café

One of Asia’s largest biking festival, the

‘India Bike Week’ gets thousands of riders together from India and around the world on one common platform. This year, a session on how one can actually carve out a career out of the exciting world of motorsports will be moderated by Indian motorcyclist, journalist and also the co-founder of Power Drift, Sagar Sheldekar. He will be joined by other motivational speakers, many of them icons of the bike world, and will discuss how the world of motorsports changed their life and how they dared to dream and then fought to fulfil their dreams.

Among the panellists at the session ‘Career & Future of Motorsport in India’ are Rok Bagoras, an international celebrity stunt rider, FMX 4 EVER, an international freestyle MotoCross team, Aishwarya Pissay, the first Indian athlete to win a world title, Rajnin Krishnan, the first Indian winner of Asian Road Racing Championship, Simran King, a National Champion for JK Tyre 1000 CC category and Ashish Raorane, India’s only international privateer rally raid motorcycle racer.

Rok Bagoros

is a world-famous Slovenian stunt rider. Back in 2015, he won the Last Man Standing competition in Austria. As a teenager, he was winning titles on his scooter, which he bought himself by selling newspapers and washing dishes. After gaining the title of the best scooter stunt driver in the world, he switched to motorcycling. Rok comes from a small town and a loving family, who didn’t always have the means to help him with his dream. That is why Rok has such a strong motivational quality, because he knows how you have to work to achieve things on your own.

Ashish Raorane

is India’s only international privateer rally raid motorcycle racer and the first Indian to complete 2019 FIM Baja World Championship finishing seventh in the Hungarian Baja and finished 12th overall. A marine engineer by profession, he spends his time off the ship on motorbike tours. While Ashish has been a sportsperson since childhood, rallying happened in his later years. Motorcycles were always a part of his passions, which led to his first tryst with off-roading on his KTM 390 Duke. There’s no passion without support and Ashish’s family has been his biggest strength. His wife is part of his support team and travels with him during rallies.

Simranjeet Singh

is a professional superbike racer popularly known as ‘Simran King’. In the racing circle, he won the 1000cc round of the JK Championship twice in the last four years. Before he started racing, he was into stunt riding but was instantly hooked when he went on the racetrack for the first time. He has been doing consistent track event ever since. India still has a long way to go when it comes to motorcycle racing he says but believe that there is scope for improvement and is confident that he will see many racers from India on the international stage making the country proud.

Nine-time national champ

Rajini Krishnan

from Chennai became a national road racing champion in 2011 and 2013. After losing his father at the age of 15, Krishnan found little to no support from his mother and other family members with regards to his ambitions of becoming a professional rider. As a young bike enthusiast, he used to help his brother at their auto rickshaw lining workshop in Chennai. That’s where his passion for bikes was reignited. He has come a long way since then. He became the first Indian winner of an international road racing event with his victory at the Losail Asian Road Racing Championship in Qatar and won the Malaysian Superbike Championship in 2015.

An Indian circuit and off-road motorcycle racer,

Aishwaya Pissay

has become the first-ever Indian athlete to win a world title in motorsport when she aced the FIM Bajas World Cup in Hungary. She is the first Indian woman to win 6 National titles in Circuit Racing and Rally Championship combined. She found her passion in racing as she turned 18, while embarking on road trips in and around her home town of Bengaluru. After a disappointing performance in her 12th grade exams, and enduring challenging family situations, she turned to biking and found solace in it. Aishwarya will be telling her story at the India Bike Week.