Sri Lanka honours its motor racing champs at CEAT SLADA Awards

The CEAT Racing Team won the Team Championship for Cars for a second successive year and Ashan Silva was declared Best Driver, accounting for the top laurels at the 2015 CEAT SLADA Championship awards, the grand culmination of another closely-contested motor racing season.

Shehan Adikari was adjudged the Best Rider of 2015 repeating his feat of last year, while the Team Championship for Motorbikes went to Honda Racing at this event, at which awards were also presented to nine individual supporting champions and to the four best drivers and riders at team events.

From left: CEAT Kelani Holdings Managing Director/CEO Vijay Gambhire, Air Force Commander Gagana Bulathsinhala, Janaka Dias, Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara, Upulwan Serasinghe, SLADA President Dilhan Jayawardena and CEAT Vice President Sales and Marketing and Exports Ravi Dadlani at the presentation of the 2015 Car Team Champions trophy to Upulwan Serasinghe and Janaka Dias of CEAT Racing at the CEAT SLADA Awards night

The CEAT SLADA Championship awards, so named in acknowledgement of the title sponsorship provided to this event by Sri Lanka’s leading tyre brand CEAT for the past six years, was attended by the cream of Sri Lanka’s motor racing fraternity, officials, senior ranks of the armed forces and eminent invitees.

Performances at the five major race meets of 2015, the Fox Hill Super Cross, Sigiriya Rally Cross, Gunners Super Cross, Gajaba Super Cross and Rotherham Katukurunda Circuit Meet were considered for this year’s CEAT SLADA Championship Awards.

Of the nine awards presented to individual champions the supporting car events, Kushan Peiris and Sajaad Zuhair won two awards apiece, while the five awards in the Motorbike category went to Imal Manchanayaka, Mithuna C. Sigera, Rugvid Babujee, Ishan Dasanayaka and Evon B. Gurusinghe.

Hansika Abeysinghe, the 13 year old girl who won the 160cc four stroke event at the Katukurunda Circuit Meet was recognised as the ‘Up and Coming Rider’ of 2015.

The CEAT Racing Team which took the Car Team Championship achieved a total of 61 podium finishes at the five race meets of 2015, consolidating its position as a force to be reckoned with on Sri Lanka’s racing tracks.

The meet schedule for the 2016 CEAT SLADA Championship comprises of the Sigiriya Rally Cross (19 and 20 March 2016) Fox Hill Super Cross (23 and 24 April 2016), Rotherham Katukurunda Circuit Meet 1 (27 and 28 May 2016), Gunners Super Cross (9 and 10 July 2016), and Rotherham Katukurunda Circuit Meet 2 (15 and 16 October 2016).