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Siliguri, 10 March 2019: The country’s only multi-nation rally, the JK Tyre Himalayan Drive 7, culminated earlier this month, with the famed duo of Ajgar Ali and Md. Mustafa reigning supreme and retaining their crown.

It was a particularly sweet triumph as the champions completed a rare hat-trick in this gruelling four-day event.

Ali and Mustafa felt the heat on the second and third day but used their vast experience to emerge victorious with a total tally of 1110 penalty points.

The team of Gagan Sethi and Rajkumar Mundra (with 1847 penalty points) and Jogendra Jaiswal and Nagarajan Thangaraj (with 2035 penalty points) secured the second and third positions in what proved to be a thrilling fight to the finish.

In the open category, the team of Govind Dalmia and Anand Agarwal edged past category leader Rohit Agarwal and Kunal Joshi to finish with 9149 penalty points. The Agarwal-Joshi team scored 9691 penalty points. Finishing third in this category were the team of Suyash Raj and Mohammad Sharif with 10796 penalty points.

This year’s battle for the big title saw a nail-biting finish. The team of Jogendra Jaiswal and Nagarajan Thangaraj, who started the final day (Day 4) as championship leaders, will rue their luck as the crown eluded them for missing the penultimate time control. They suffered a 900-penalty points blow for their faux pas which was enough to send them crashing down to the second place.

“We are very happy to score this hattrick. It was a very exciting rally and I can say that the JK Tyre Himalayan Drive is the best TSD rally in the country. The competitive sections were superb and posed a tough challenge to drivers, navigators and our cars,” said Ajgar Ali.

Ajgar, who led the cross-country drive in the first two stages, slipped to the second spot by the end of the third stage.

With the fourth leg getting cancelled due to snowfall in Paro (Bhutan), they had a steep mountain to climb. Some brave driving, mixed with sheer luck, which saw the leaders picking up a huge penalty, saw them return to the top.

This year’s victory takes the total winning tally of Ajgar Ali and Mohammed Musthafa to four titles (2013, 2017, 2018 and 2019) since the Himalayan Drive was first held in 2013. The team of Sudip Ghosh and navigator Arindam Ghosh were the only other team to have won more than one championship title at this event (2014 and 2016). Anubhav De and co-driver Chandan Sen won the title in 2015.

The last leg of the rally was flagged off from the Kalimpong stadium and started with a steep climb on the road from Mungpoo to Jorebungalow that was lined with verdant forests and offered majestic views of snow-capped peaks of the eastern Himalayas for a few kilometres.

This was followed by another competitive section downhill through winding mountain roads of Rohini. The third and last competitive section was a tough drive stretching over nearly 23 kilometers through the bed of the Mechi river that forms the border between India and Nepal.

“I would really like to congratulate Ali and Musthafa for their achievement. The way the entire drive panned, it only shows how the competition has increased over the years and I am sure it will keep getting better every year. I would also like to congratulate Just Sportz for their hard work and commitment for pulling off one more successful edition of the Himalayan Drive,” Mr. Sanjay Sharma, head of JK Motorsport, said.

The 800-km JK Tyre Himalayan Drive 7, which was organised in association with Experience Bengal (West Bengal Tourism), sawt the competitors drive their mean machines for four days through majestic locations in North Bengal, scenic hills in Darjeeling and various picturesque routes in Bhutan.

The TSD drive which draws inspiration from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s vision of connecting Bengal to its neighbours and encouraging people to people connectivity in the region, covered a wide variety of terrain, ranging from tarmac, river beds, dirt tracks, forest paths to mountainous roads.

The drivers took-off from Siliguri post the ceremonial flag-off and travelled all the way to Murti, driving past North Bengal’s lush forests, river banks and embankments and idyllic towns.

The second leg saw the drivers start their journey from Murti to Paro, going through tea gardens and forests that are home to a rich variety of flora and fauna, including the Royal Bengal Tiger, the one-horned rhino and the Asiatic elephant before entering Bhutan through Phuentsholing.

From Phuentsholing, the competitors hit the mountain roads filled with hairpin bends and steep gradients that offer spectacular views of the Himalayan heights, before entering the breathtaking Paro Valley.

On the third day, they were supposed to drive back from Paro Valley through Dooars and cross the iconic Coronation Bridge over Teesta river to reach Kalimpong but the leg got cancelled due to snowfall in Bhutan.

The final leg of this rally on Saturday had the competitors drive down from Kalimpong, cross the Teesta bridge, Mungpoo, Jorebunglow and Kurseong before descending into the plains through Rohini.

After reaching the plains, they went through Dudhia and Panighata, the riverbeds of Menjha and Mechi, and touched Naxalbari before taking the Asian Highway 2 and then National Highway 27 to finish at the City Center at Siliguri, where the prize distribution was held at a gala function.