Jaden, Sajaad stamp EZY Racing’s dominance

EZY Racing, Sri Lanka's foremost motor racing team went on to complete one of the strongest weekends they have had in the recent past, when they dominated the races in the Pannala Circuit, by winning seven podium finishes in the five races they took part. The black and red team who carry the slogan, “Racing is our Passion”, introduced their riders for the first time in 2012. It was when nine year old Jaden and his younger brother Aaron (8 years) were introduced to the team with their EZY riding machines, the ER-Y and ER-Z for the first time in 2012.

The EZY team with their trophies. (From left) Pasindu Peiris, Jaden Gunawardane, Shafraz Junaid, Shafraz Hamzadeen, Sajaad Zuhair, Aaron Gunawardane and Rizvi Farouk

Jaden, the defending champion in the standard 4 stroke up to 125 CC category was given a wake up call by his younger brother Aaron who was the runner up in 2011, when he finished with the best time to start at the pole position last Saturday. Jaden was forced to start from an unfamiliar second place on the grid in an event which saw the “two kids” competing against 19 grown up professional motor riders.

Aaron had a bad start due to his in sufficient height in balancing the bike which gave his brother Jaden a clear lead. As Jaden slowly started stretching his lead off in the 8 lap event, Aaron started overtaking almost the entire grid who went ahead of him in the start and managed to catch up to his brother by the fourth lap. There onwards the two riders provided a spectacular performance of motor biking skills as they lapped many riders to take the chequered flag with Jaden on the lead, closely followed by Aaron to provide EZY Racing a 1-2 finish in their maiden appearance for 2012.

The star studded racing team were given their second 1-2 finish in the SLH 1500CC event, when Sajaad Zuhair in his ER2 and Rizvi Farouk in his ER7, entertained the fans through 8 laps of dog fighting where Rizvi stuck to Sajaad's tail all the way through in search of his first win for 2012.

The two experienced drivers belonging to the same team were involved in a close tussle for victory with Sajaad managing to finish ahead of Rizvi. Experienced veteran racer Rohan De Silva finished 3rd. Rohan De Silva also missed out on bagging a victory in the Formula 1600 event when he had to unfortunately retire with a car failure in 5th lap, while he was leading the event from Ashan Silva and Dinesh Jayawardane. The 2011 Formula Runner up, Shafraz Junaid who started the event at the back of the grid at 16th place, had a spectacular race where he managed to overtake 12 cars to finish 3rd in the event.

The EZY Racing drivers were involved in another spectacular race, in the SLH upto 1600CC event where Pasindu Peiris, in his Honda ER4, starting last on the grid, overtook all but the leader to finish second. The best moment of the race was when Pasindu was involved in a tussle with his team mate Sajaad who was in second place. Pasindu managed to creep through a slight gap that was left by Sajaad, who immediately fought back very hard to regain the position before retiring with a punctured tyre which deprived EZY Racing of a second and third place finish in the event which was easily won by Dilan Seneviratne.

The biggest disappointment for EZY Racing came in the much looked forward SLGT upto 3500CC event when their star driver Pasindu Peiris who led the race from pole position lost out in the last corner due to a brake failure to the experienced Dinesh Deheragoda who was driving his brand new Mitsubishi Evolution RS for the first time. Darin Weerasinghe finished third in the event.

“All in all, this was a very satisfying weekend. Bagging 7 podiums in 5 races is no easy task and I believe our drivers and riders did an exceptional job in achieving this. It’s also a touch disappointing that Pasindu had a break failure which resulted in him conceding the race lead to Deheragoda. Nevertheless, we understand that all these are things can easily happen to anyone in competitive racing. We definitely will take our learnings from this race and see how we could eliminate such situations in the future” said CEO/ Team Principal of EZY Racing, Shafraz Hamzadeen.