Intro
What comes to your mind when you hear about power, speed, and adrenaline? Well, if you are a motorhead just like us, ‘racing’ is the first thing that should come to you. One fast machine mated to a set of wheels eagerly waiting to unleash the power to its fullest as soon as the lights on the drag strip glow red. And to tame these beasts, are drivers/riders that are equally capable and focused armed with super quick reflexes and an adrenaline rush to set the fastest time in just a quarter of a mile.
Now, all this sounds tempting when you visualise this with you and your machine on a race track. However, it’s not very economical to lease one and moreover, where’s the fun if don’t have any competition? That brings us to the annual event that we here at CarWale always look forward to with utmost thrill and excitement. Stepping into its tenth edition this year, The Valley Run (TVR) continues to lure the purists on both two and four wheels where the participants go head-to-head with the best of their machines to conquer the quarter mile in the quickest ever time.
While the high-octane racing event was for good three days, the four-wheeler action was set for the second and the third day as day one was all about two wheelers plonked with highly modified engines that put out insanely quick lap times.
With over 700 participants spread across more than 30 categories, the four-wheeler drag races kicked off with Novice category, followed by Pro Stock, Import, Diesels, and ET Pro classes. TVR managed by Elite Octane Inc. also witnessed a host of sponsors that included Monster Energy, Petronas Sprinta (lubricant partners), and driving experience partner – Mercedes-AMG. The latter also had its AMG lineup – Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 S Coupe 4Matic+ along with the newest addition in the performance division, the Mercedes-AMG EQS on display.
Before we get into the lap times and winners, let us tell you about the array of cars that graced the carnival. Some of the legendary cars were Honda City VTEC, Maruti Zen, Maruti Suzuki Swift, Skoda Octavia, and Skoda Laura. While these surely carried the popular monikers, underneath the skin, most of them were powered by souped-up engines with insane levels of modifications.
Starting with the Novice category, the top position in the O1 class (Up to 1150cc) was claimed by Maruti Suzuki Zen driven by Aniket Bhoj who clocked 18.942 seconds. Overall, the category witnessed the renowned Marutis, Honda Citys, and Volkswagens battling it out to clinch the title. Next up was the Pro Stock category ranging from a modest 1150cc to over 5101cc which comprised big guns like the Lamborghini Huracan, Audi S5 and the popular Nissan GT-R. The fastest of the lot was Imran Majid’s GT-R which blazed up a 10.079-second time closely followed by Biren Pithawalla’s GT-R in 10.696 seconds.
Winning the 1651 cc – 2050 cc L4 Diesel category
This year too, CarWake participated in TVR, however, this time in the diesel category. We placed our bet on the new Mercedes-Benz C300d which sourced over 260bhp from a 1993cc four-cylinder turbo-diesel power mill. Driven by our Managing Editor, Abhishek Nigam, the three-pointed four-door saloon emerged victorious with an astonishing quarter mile time of flat 14 seconds! Here’s all the action you need to know about the thrilling lap.
The highlight of this year’s TVR edition was the Nissan GT-R which recorded a blistering time of 9.766 seconds. With this, the Kik Shift and Alpha Logic-tuned GT-R became the first-ever car to have clocked a sub-10-second run in the history of Valley Run.
With this, TVR marks a decade in its history and CarWale registers another golden win in the 2022 edition of this speed carnival. Over these 10 years, it is heartening to see the turnout of over hundreds of participants celebrating their love for speed by bringing the best of the machines and enthusiasm to this petrolhead festival.
