Author: David Bodapati

Itanagar, 16 Dec 2020: Champions Yacht Club promoted Indian National Rally Championship presented an early Christmas gift in the form of Diwali fireworks that woke up the sleepy village of Chimpu with screeching sounds and visible thrills. The few hundred fortunate fans, who enthusiastically cheered and clapped for every car that took the flying finish witnessed and enjoyed the motorsport thrills that only a few or fortunate can witness. The rare moment was the highlight tonight, as the beast of a machines, XUV300 driven at mind-boggling speeds produced pleasing sights.

After the wheel flew off, for over 70 metres in the pitch-dark night huge sparks lit up the night with the rim screeching the tarmac before coming to a halt at the TC. The flying wheel miraculously missed everyone and sped across in a jiffy and landed near a house in no-man’s land. The hot right front rim, shining bright like a round ring in a smelting furnace, National double champion in 2012 and 2013, Amittrajit Ghosh, sprinting to bring back the tyre in a few seconds like an F1 pit crew, presented a spectacle that reminded a splendid glimpse of what happened in Formula One to Grosjean’s car recently. It was scary though, for only die-hard fans and fraternity who watch motorsports regularly would understand such accidents.

But it is also a tribute to the safety arrangements done by the Arunachal Pradesh, Lhakpa Tsering, the Director of the event, and all the officials, organisers and marshals. Rally of Arunachal is the only rally in India which gets the safety operations approved and implemented by a State Government with none other than the Superintendent of Police personally seen handling the scene at the spot, just before the stage became green. Closing a National Highway, NH415 in this case, is unheard of in Indian Rallying History until Rally of Arunachal came up.

Later, in a few minutes, Ghosh got back into the seat and drove off, as if nothing happened. INDIAinF1 caught up at the Service Park with the co-driver Ashwin Naik and Ghosh, who were visibly upset and disappointed. “It was dangerous and just an unlucky incident,’’ dismissed Ghosh initially. But he failed to reel out quotes, as is his wont in normal times. For a few seconds, he was silent, then added: `”It is a rare incident, a wheel would fly off, happens in a decade or so in rallying. My wheel studs came off just before the flying finish.’’ As soon as he stopped after FF, and even as Ashwin is reporting and taking the timesheets, Ghosh jumped out ran, and brought the tyre back.

The tarmac stage and the highly technical superfast Special Stages, the cold temperatures of a night stage may have spoiled many cars, with some stalwarts suffering initial hiccups even before the start of the SS1 and one such unfortunate exit today was the Volkswagen Polo, of Overall defending champion Chetan Shivram of Snap Racing, who did take the stage but gave up in 13 minutes in SS1. “It stalled before the start and we managed to take the start. But within 5km it stalled again. I am not sure what it is and have to check what happened. We came well prepared and gunning for a big fight but am very, very disappointed,’’ said Chetan Shivaram, who is a mentor to many drivers including the talented newcomer Pragathi Gowda, a newbee who drove like a veteran, doing a wonderful job on the day first day of her debut.  “Amazing, it is a wonderful day. I am so happy and having fun,’’ said a pleased-like a punch MBA student of Symbiosis, Pune. Born and bought up in Bengaluru, the 23-year old gets inspiration from her father, just like her silent navigator, who is born and bred under the motorsports culture. Pragathi’s navigator being none other than, Deeksha, the daughter of Balakrishna, popularly known as BK, and currently elevated to full-time motorsports job as Sporting Director in FMSCI. BK is a life-coach helping many a needy.

Incidentally, Amer Beg and Shahid Salman of INRC3, also of Snap Racing and defending champion in INRC4, Vaibhav Marathe of Goa, are the three casualties that logged DNF tag today (did-not- finish).  Local driver Pen Sonam and co-driver Lenin Jose did not start their Gypsy.

For the record, the King of Indian Motorsports Gaurav Gill was fastest in all the four stages despite displaying controlled aggression and easing off in the opening stage. As his car approached into the first few km, it sounded very different, with unusual lift-off sound that broke the screeching, steady noise, which is music to the ears of a rally fan. `I had a set-up issue and did take time but there on managed to touch top speeds,’’ said the multiple APRC champion and six-time Indian National title winner.

And the reigning champ Chethan Shivram too clocked a DNF stalling his car in the very first stage. Of the 43 cars only 39 finished the Day 1, in the Rally of Arunachal, the first round of Champions Yacht Club fmsci Indian National Racing Championship (INRC) 2020.

MRF continues to pump in money with COVID only changing their status to Associate Sponsor and Sakthi Herbal Nutpowder, a popular health product in Andhra Pradesh making its debut in another AP, that is Arunachal Pradesh, thanks to the promoters. Team Vasundhara, another Hyderabad Jewellery giant, too added their glittering presence & power to “Women in Motorsport”, a concept that is being promoted by FIA. And along with individual team promoters, Mallikarjuna Rao, of Team Nutalapati, Aashish of Team Vasundhara joined the local village fans and sat on the parapet wall of small kiosk/eatery and awaited the cars. They were lucky to see such thrilling motorsports action on their very first day. Rao was seen jumping with joy and congratulating everyone, when he heard that Dr Speed Bikku Babu, is leading the class, at that point while at the service park. The two Vasundhara team drivers too dished out some stunning times today. The third Team owner, Anumolu Ramakrishna is an NRI in USA and could not come here. But this reporter heard him talk to the drivers of his two cars, Lanusanane, who was excluded before being allowed to take the start.

Coming back to the `Flying Wheel’, fortunately, every one escaped miraculously, but all the drama and fireworks of this dangerous incident, did throw light on the security arrangements and safety aspects and the Stage Commander and his team and Marshals should be commended for convincing a person no other than the Superintendent of Police, who insisted that traffic should be allowed to go for a few minutes between SS 1 and SS2. Fortunately,better sense prevailed and Stage Commander Chandramouli and senior rally sportspersons like Srikanth Gowda and other team members did a good job convincing the top police chief. The gentle giant did endure some irritating advise from a journalist and stayed on much beyond the midnight mark and supervised safety protocols.

Provisional Unaudited Leg Results – After Day 1 (Special Stage 4 – SS4)

Overall Leading: 1. Car#4 Gaurav Gill/ Musa Sherif (Delhi, #PoweredByMahindra) XUV300; (28minutes: 22.700 seconds); 2. c#8 Karna Kadur/ Nikhil Pai (Bengaluru, Arka Motorsports) VW Polo (31:31.300); 3. C#3 Dr `Speed’ Bikku Babu (Kerala, Pvt) /Bonnie Thomas (Kerala) VW Polo (31:42.200);

INRC:  1. C#4 Gaurav Gill (Delhi, Privateer #PoweredByMahindra) XUV300; (28minutes: 22.700 seconds);  2. C#8 Karna Kadur (Bengaluru, Privateer, Arka Motorsports) VW Polo (31:31.300); 3. c#7 Amittrajit Ghosh (Kolkota) /Ashwin Naik (Mangalore) (#PoweredByMahindra) (2:29:25.400);

INRC2: 1. Dr Speed Bikku Babu (Kerala, Pvt) /Bonnie Thomas (Kerala) (31:42.200); 2. Dean Mascarenhas Shruptha Padiva (Mangalore, Pvt) (31:47.800); 3. Sahil Khanna (Gurugaon) / Vidit Jain (Noida) (Snap Racing) VW Polo (32:29.400);

INRC3: 1. Aditya Thakur (Team Nutalapati) (Himachal Pradesh) (VW Polo) (33:24.300); 2. Mininder Singh Prince/ Vinay Kumar (Snap Racing) C#20; VW Polo (34:06.900); 3. Syed Salman Ahmed/ BK Rishab (VW Polo) (34:47.900);

INRC4: 1. Mujeeb Rehman/ Goutham CP c#27; (Honda City) (33:22.000); 2. C#30 Lanusanen Pongener/ Lokaranjan HJ (Honda City); 3. Khyati Mod/ Sagar Mallappa, C#31 Honda City; (42:17.000).

Gypsy Challenge: 1. Amanpreet Ahluwalia/ Sandeep Mansukhani (Maruti Suzuki Gypsy) (35:50.500); 2. Daksh Gill/ Mrinmoy Saha (38:14.000); 3. Mohd. Kaif Khan/ Arjun Dheerendra (38:49.400);

Note: Junior INRC will be added on the final day.