Hyderabad, 19 October 2024: Arjuna Awardee Gaurav Gill began with a bang and cruised into his wonted form to take the lead navigating the tricky and rough stages in the Blueband Rally of Hyderabad, the fourth round of the Blueband FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship 2024, which began at the Special Stages around the Liberty Statue in Shamshabad on Saturday.
Gill, along with co-driver Anirudha Rangnekar, took the overall lead while the pair of Daraius Shroff and Arjun Dheerendra are leading the INRC3 class and Chetan Shivram and Shivprakash, INRC2 class.
The final stage, SS4 was red flagged after only four cars crossed the finish flag as a few cars toppled out. Three top guns, 2021 champion Aditya Thakur, defending champ Arjun Rao Aroor and INRC2 leader Harkishan Wadia, suffered causalities. Daraius Shroff is leading INRC3 after three stages and Chethan Shivram tops the INRC2 class, also after three stages.
Earlier, Delhi’s speed maestro and 7-time National champion, Gill, clocked the fastest time in the first Special Stage and took a commanding lead of 17 seconds on former champion Chetan Shivram (co-driver Shivaprakash) of Bengaluru with Arnav Pratap Singh and Gulbarga’s Rithesh Guttedar following the top guns in the first stage. Gill kept his momentum with a combination of caution and aggression in the next three stages to cruise into a comfortable lead after Day 1. Chethan was fastest in JVR2, the second Special Stage, by 6.2seconds, by Gill bounced back with another 15 seconds margin on Chethan in the third stage and retained his overall lead.
Of the 55 cars that took the start, 15 cars failed to finish Day 1. However, 13 of them will take a restart on Sunday.
Provisional Results: (Day 1) (All times after SS3 only)
Note: Only five cars finished the SS4, the final stage of the day before the stage was red flagged. So all the rest of the cars were given scratch times based on SS2 times.
Bengaluru, 22 August 2021: Pragathi Gowda of Bengaluru claimed overall honours bagging the fastest driver tag powering her Volkswagen Polo to a stunning time of 2 min, 22.268 seconds over two-laps of the 1-km United Off-road track in the 2021 Time Attack organised by Chetan Shivram Motorsports, a two-day FMSCI-licensed event that concluded here on Sunday.
Ashwin Reddy, Abhin R Rai and Syed Salman bagged a double each in the professional class on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Moin Pasha, Sahil Khan and Asad Pasha also won their classes in the pro section. The event supported by Eco-Life, Anvitha Estates, DC Motorsports and Unite Motorsports received overwhelming response with 176 entries which were divided into professional and amateur sections. Trophies were provided by 6T9th.com and Starttline Motorsports manned the timing equipment that gave one by thousandth of a second times for every driver.
Beating many top male drivers in the 13-car start list of the feature event, the 2nd year MBA student who is just three caps in the Indian National Rally Championship (INRC), slided the corners and attacked the straights to top the time-sheets in Race 1 to beat Ashwin Reddy to second and Moin Pasha to third place. Pragathi eased off on Day 2 due to the slippery track where rookie Syed Salman, proved his mastery on the slushy terrain to beat Asad Pasha and star driver Dhruva Chandrasekhar who was not in his elements on the day due to technical issues with his car.
Pragathi Gowda, who bagged the Overall honours in the Chetan Shivram Motorsports Time Attack at Unite Off Park in Bengaluru on 21 August 2021.
“It’s always a good feeling to improve times and Time Attack provided me the right stage as the terrain is very technical and it helped me sharpen my skills to be ready for the INRC. Beating the big boys is a bonus,” added the Bengalurean, who made pundits take notice with her speed in a rally-prep INRC3 spec, in her debut at Itanagar last December.
Jayanth Samynathan won Race 1 in the Rally Cars class beating Reddy brothers Ashwin and Tarun while in Race 2 on Sunday, Syed Salman took the honours with Ashwin Reddy taking a second again and Asad Pasha completing the podium.
Ruthuparna Vivek, Amrut Shekar and Mohammad Uzair won the Amateur races on Day 1 while Ruthuparna Vevek got a double gold on Day 2 in 1600cc and 2000cc even as Arvind won the 1400cc and Mohammed Shabaz bagged 1100cc class.
Naresh of Bro Racing won the Tuner class with veteran INRC tuner Yusuf of Snap Racing taking second and Amju of Ideal Racing came third.
“Since a lot of newcomers including first-timers are there. We wanted to provide a platform where they would not be fighting with the veterans which is very de-motivating. So we had separate class for modified cars driven by professionals,” explained Chetan Shivram, the Clerk of the Course. Shivram, the 2019 Indian National Rally Champion, is a top motorsports mentor training every month scores of rally drivers to excel and was recently roped in by the INRC Promoters to conduct a Driver school to train over two dozen lady drivers ready for INRC. “I thank Nikhil of Unite Off-track for preparing and providing the beautiful track,” added the man behind the show.
“We conducted the event in a bio-bubble following all the COVID protocols of the government as safety is always a top-priority in motorsports. With virtually no events for drivers to get their seat time, Time Attack is a great op for them to brush up their skills for the National rallies and gain some practice in a competitive environment,” said Sanjeev P Shah, the Chief Steward and Secretary of Karnataka Motor Sports Club (KMSC).
Final (Provisional) Results:
Professional Race 1 (2 laps):
Pro United Off-road Open Class: 1. Pragathi Gowda (02 min, 22.268 seconds); 2. D Ashwin Reddy (02:23.665); 3. Moin Pasha (02:24.242).
Pro Upto 1100cc: 1. Moin Pasha (02:30.027);2. Abhisek Gowda (02:32.517); 3.Prakash R (02:34.459).
Pro Upto 1400cc: 1.Abhin R Rai (02:27.936); 2.Sahil (02:29.277); 3. Moin Pasha (02:29.516);
Pro Upto 1600cc: 1. D Ashwin Reddy (02:24.567); 2. D Tarun Reddy (02:25.160); 3. Sahil (02:26.295).
Pro Upto 2000cc: 1. D Ashwin Reddy(02:27.808);2. Dhruva Chandrasekhar (02:28.423); 3. Sahil (2:28.471).
Pro Rally-tuned cars: 1. Jayanth Samynathan (02:31.352);2. D Ashwin Reddy (02:32.004); 3. D Tarun Reddy (02:34.349).
Esteem: 1. Abhin R Rai (02:31.543); 2. Jayanth Samynathan (02:32.193); 3. Arvind (02:37.280).
Chetan Shivaram and Dilip Sharan of Team Akshara win the overall title in the Rally of Coimbatore. Photo by Venu Ramesh
Coimbatore, 11 August 2019: Brothers Chetan Shivram and Dilip Sharan of Team Akshara, played a cautious game and focussed on keeping the car on track with a safety-first approach, to chalk-out a deserving win in the Rally of Coimbatore, the second round of the fmsci Indian National Rally Championship (INRC), promoted Champions Yacht Club, at the Windmill farms of Kethanur, near here on Sunday.
Chetan painted the town yellow in his stock Volkswagen Polo prepared by FRK Racing and supported by Ideal Racing and displayed controlled aggression with his brother Sharan calling the notes. The focussed Bengaluru duo weathered a sustained challenge from Race Concepts’ Younus Ilyas and Harish Gowda, the INRC Sprint champions and won by a narrow margin of 4.6 seconds. Further behind, the talented youngster from Kerala Arakkal Fabid Ahmer, with co-driver Sanath Gopalan, also in a Polo prepared by Chettinad Sporting came third for Team Champions. Fabid who was trailing 5th overnight also won the second place in the INRC 3 class.
Chetan Shivaram and Dilip Sharan on the podium. Photo. Chetan’s FB post
Nurturing their four-second lead was made easy as overnight second-placed privateer Suhem Kabeer and co-driver Jeevarathinam clocked 14min, 43.10sec and lost time in the 6th stage to Chetan’s 8:21.30, as they got stuck in the slush but behind them Younus Ilyas (Harish) of Race Concepts who were running third, started reducing the 19-second gap. Chetan Shivaram, however, managed to cling on to the lead and not only won the overall title but also topped the INRC 3 category. Despite losing six minutes or so, Suhem held on to the third place in INRC 2 class but lost the overall podium finishing 15th. Younus was ahead in two of the three stages but that was not enough as they settled for overall second place.
But Younus and Harish had the consolation bagging the title in the INRC 2 category. For the record, it was the doctor from Kerala, Bikku Babu, along with co-driver Milen George who won all the three stages today with top-notch driving. But the experienced Kerala duo found it too difficult to make up the time, over an hour, which they lost in SS5 on Saturday.
Vaibhav Marate and Arjun Balachandran’s Honda City flying through windmill stages. Photo Prabhu Kethanur
But the highlight of the day was the drive from talented youngster from Mangalore Dean Mascarenhas, who fielded his VW Polo as a privateer along with navigator Shruptha Padival. The duo who are leading the championship coming into Round 2, lost a lot of time on Saturday but made tremendous progress jumping 32 places to finish overall 10th and had the bonus of a second place in the INRC 2 category.
While many started today to get leg points, 17 cars failed to finish among the 57 that took the start on Saturday. Pre-event favourites Gaurav Gill and Musa Sherif of Team Mahindra Adventure once again suffered for want of dependable machine and finished 44th in line with teammates Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik who were 43rd. Karna Kadur and Nikhil Pai of Arka Motorsports too had a forgettable event finishing 50th overall.
Younus Ilyas and Harish Gowda pose during the Rally of Coimbatore. Photo: FB
In the SUV Challenge, Team Champions swept the podium winning all the top-three places.  Lokesh Gowda and co-driver Sudhindra BG won the support class while Gagan Karumbaiah and Thimmu Uddapanda pair came second followed by veteran Sanjay Agarwal and Smitha N.
The next round of the championship will move to Jodhpur in Rajasthan from Septemeber 20 to 22. Kochi, Bengaluru, and Chikkamagaluru will host the last three rounds respectively in November and December.
Gagan Karumbaiah and co-driver Thimmu Uddapanda who won the SUV Challenge cruising on Saturday stages. Photo: Venu Ramesh
