It's good news for Indian bikers as not only are world class motorcycles making their foray into the Indian market but existing manufacturers too are taking initiatives to establish their products and brands as the competition stirs up. One such bike-maker is Bajaj Auto which has been actively promoting its sporty Pulsar brand via various events like Pulsar Stunt Mania and the newly introduced Pulsar Garage Meets. Recently, the Pune-based two-wheeler manufacturer invited customers of the Kawasaki Ninja 250R motorcycle for a track day at the MMST race-track in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, to celebrate the occasion of over 1, 000 Ninja 250R motorcycles on Indian roads.

And there couldn't have been a better place for the owners of the Ninja 250R, touted as the largest-selling multi-cylinder 4-stroke motorcycle in India, to truly exploit and discover the potential of this Japanese quarter-litre pocket rocket than the safe environs of the 3. 74 km-long MMST circuit with a variety of 12 different corners. Christened as Kawasaki Green Day 2011, the daylong event witnessed the participation of over forty Ninja 250R owners who came down to Chennai from places like Meerut, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore, etc and, of course, from the host city of Chennai, which is also one of the top three sellers of the Kawasaki Ninja 250R.

The idea was to allow the owners of the Ninja 250R to spend a day on the race track and make full use of the 33 horses of the motorcycle in the safe surroundings of this track without having to worry about traffic, bad road conditions or silly pedestrians coming in the way.

The forty participants were divided into two groups, each consisting of 20 riders. At no time were there more than 20 participants on the track keeping in mind the safety of the riders. Bajaj Auto also invited Kawasaki test-rider Masayuki Inoue who has been testing Kawasaki's Ninja portfolio over a decade. Joining him was a batch of Indian expert class racers from the National Road Racing Championship.

The participants underwent four rider training programmes in the day and each one included a classroom session with an expert rider. This was followed by on-track practice wherein each rider put in over forty laps on the track. Each batch of ten riders had one instructor assigned who showed them the lines around the track and explained the art of cornering on a motorcycle. Since many of the Kawasaki Ninja 250R owners who attended the Kawasaki Green Day 2011 were first-timers on the race track, it was an exciting experience for them to ride their Ninjas under the guidance of expert riders.

Owing to the lack of accessibility to race tracks in the country, the frequency of events like the Kawasaki Green Day 2011 is still significantly low but with big names in motorcycling stepping onto the Indian two-wheeler scene and a growing number of bikers looking to test the limits of their machines, such events are set to become a regular part of every biker's calendar.