Rarest of the minds get a clear picture of their passion at the age of 11. Well the man we are talking about, even brought his into action at the age of 15, when he started free style stunt riding. Udipta Kumar Rath, the name steering the eyes of the youth of Odisha and now India towards him, is up for an another big challenge.
At the age of 21, he took a step ahead from freestyle stunting to motorcycle racing, by becoming the first ever racer from the state of Odisha to be participating in the National motorcycle Racing Championship. Since then, he has been adding encomiums in the list of his achievements. A humble heart and a grateful attitude makes him reach more people not only in numbers but in depths and there he rises as an ambassador of youth wanting to pursue an out of the box career, which is still a taboo in our country.
Here, Udipta Kumar takes another step in breaking the stereotype and refusing to wave his white flags before an army of people persuading the pursuit of following the conventions so convincingly. After an year of getting trained for this, and being hit upon by not so successful year when he made it to the top 10 but not in the top 3, he is off to the Pirelli Malaysia Super bike Championship 2017 from the team ARD Performance Motorsports. Just the way you watch him standing up after a crash within a fraction of second, here he comes back with ardent preparation and sharp ambition. And the news is, he will be racing the dream machine of Suzuki fans, the GSX-R 600. Out of the three categories in the Championship, Udipta will be a part of the 600 cc Super sport category. The championship is to take place at the Sepang International Circuit of Malaysia which stretches for 5.543 km including 15 corners. So, on 7th of March, he will be testing the bike during the pre-session and will be on the track for the first round of championship on 17th March, followed by 5 more rounds with 10 races. This is no different than battling in a battlefield you never visited and with the arms that you never held before. He says these tracks, the bike and the competitors will be new to him, and he will get 4 hours to adopt with them in the pre-session testing.
So, when you have a dream in your head, you are prepared to face what my come, and this is when you have a fork stuck in the road, and you are required to take decisions in mere few milliseconds. One crash, one fall and everything just vanishes. So what do you do? You play, and play it the best. And then even when you fell, you get up to be on the track again, not this time, may be the next time, but the one thing you never do is, get out of the play. Udipta is the metaphor in here. And he is prepared and motivated enough to also keep his eye on other challenges like 400 cc category National Championships and Gixxer Cup Open Class coming up in the year. He is no less grateful to his supporters “Motoziel Pvt. ltd.” fro gurgaon and “Jyote Group” from bhubhneshwar who are making him pursue his dreams.
The world need spirits as Udipta Kumar Rath, because they make us understand Robert Frost better when he said, “..but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep..”. Wishing him favorable winds to be the fastest of all.