Coimbatore: At 15, Tejil Rao is the youngest racer at the JK Tyre FMSCI national racing championship. Born with a rare condition known as club foot, in which the feet are curved inwards, the Bengaluru racer had to go through surgeries when he was just a few months old.
The setback did not, however, stop him from pursuing his passion for racing. As a 14-year-old, Tejil finished seventh in the national rotax karting championship. Soon he found the pace of karts not enough.
Hungry for more, Tejil made his debut in Formula LGB 1300, which is part of the MRF national racing championship. “I had been following racing for quite some time when I was in karting. I told my father I wanted to go faster,” said Tejil who reached his first ever podium in the Novice category here.
On his rare condition and how it affects him on the track Tejil said: “My parents worked really hard to find doctors to set my feet right. I was wearing a cast until I was four years old. As the years passed, my feet started getting straight; they are a bit better now. I faced a lot of problems because of my height, the corrective surgeries and the medication I was on. My growth is a bit slower because of the medication. Sometimes races are very tiring and they take a huge toll on me but I keep pushing my physical boundaries.”
As a Class X student at Mirambika School for New Age in Bengaluru, he has the onerous task of managing academics and racing.
