Tag: INRC

Kolkata, 7 Nov 2014: Speed king Gaurav Gill and experienced navigator Musa Sherif of Team Mahindra Adventure continued their domination winning the Indian Rally Championship class in Rally de Bengal, the fourth round of the Indian National Rally Championship at Jhargram, about 167km from here, on Sunday.

After winning the first two rounds in Nashik and Coimbatore, Gill piloted his Mahindra XUV500. to a victory once again to take a comfortable lead in the championship. The spectacular performance of the Super XUV500 driven by current APRC champion Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sheriff) while the current Desert Storm Champion Sunny Sidhu along with co-driver PVS Murthy, came third.

Vivek Nayer, Chief Marketing Officer, Automotive Division, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited said: “This victory by the Mahindra vehicles is a testimony to the tough and rugged ‘Mahindra DNA’. Having won top positions in the first three rounds of the Indian Rally Championship, our win at the ‘Rally De Bengal 2014’, has continued to keep us in the lead. Time and again our vehicles are proving their mettle against the competition and we will continue to do so during the rest of the upcoming IRC season this year.”

The Rally De Bengal is a round of FMSCI Indian Rally Championship (IRC). It is run in compliance with the International Sporting Code of the FIA, the General Prescriptions for rallies (4W) of the FMSCI and all relevant Regulations concerning IRC championship. It runs special stages of 108km.

Note: Other winners to be added.

Chikmagalur, 21 Dec 2013: Dark horse Arjun Rao Aroor and co-driver Satish Rajagopal won the INRC 2013 season finale winning the Coffee Day Rally to clinch the championship in the 1600cc class. It was day to celebrate for Volkswagen, as Polo R2 rally cars dominated the overall class and the 1600 category. The fifth and final round of the Indian National Rally Championship ended here on Sunday in the rally stages at the coffee estates.

Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik have already sealed teh 2013 championship in the last round at K1000 in Bengaluru.

Sirish Chandran and Hrishikesh Thackersey, also driving Polo rally cars, came second and third to make a clean sweep in the INRC 1600 category for Volkswagen-powered cars. Rohan Pawar, also driving Volkswagen Polo, won the Junior INRC category (JINRC).

Arjun also won the 1600 category brushing aside the challenge from Vikram Devadasan and also topped overall in this round. Sirish Chandran also finished second in 1600 and came overall third.

With this victory, Arjun clinched the 2013 INRC 1600cc title. Hrishikesh Thackersey followed Sirish in INRC 1600 on the podium in third spot. While Sirish was the first reason for Slideways Industries to celebrate, Rohan Pawar won in the Junior INRC category to give the Volkswagen customer team a second reason to celebrate.

Karamjit Singh, driving Volkswagen Motorsport India developed, Polo R2, was the fastest till SS9 and was leading overall. However, a mechanical failure forced him and co-driver Jagdev Singh to opt for a retirement on SS10. Their car broke down and stood across the route forcing the organizers to cancel the SS10. Results till SS9 were taken as the final results.

Prithviraj Siddappa, Head of Volkswagen Motorsport India, said: “Volkswagen cars cruised to victories with Arjun Rao showing top notch performance and clinching a win overall while Rohan won the JINRC. Sirish made a mark by finishing second in 1600 and third overall. We are extremely delighted with our Customer Sport competitors’ performance and we hope to go even bigger the next season. I would like to specially congratulate Arjun on winning the title in a Polo rally car.”

Earlier, the Coffee Day Rally saw a visit by FIA Observer Nanthan from Malaysia and Murray Brown from New Zealand who examined the logistics. The Chikmagalur Rally is under scrutiny as a candidate and would host a round for 2014 Asia Pacific Rally Championship, if all goes well.

Earlier on Dec 19, Venkatesh, Director, Coffee Day Hotels and Resorts said that the Coffee Day Rally has become a tradition and people from all over the country visit to watch the rally cars in action. “This year, Coffee Day Rally, for the first time, will run in four Coffee Day estates spread over 2,500 acres. This year more than 7,000 spectators are expected,” he added.

Bangalore, 19 Dec 2012: The Rally of Maharashtra, which was supposed to be the final round of the Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) is now cancelled. Thus the National Championship was reduced to a `farce’ with only two rounds deciding the Championship winner.

Earlier, the second round to be held at Coorg was washed out due to heavy rains and the organisers were forced to cancel the event.

According to an earlier decision, the rally was to be held at Ahmednagar to be run on gravel stages but the organisers could not get the necessary permissions from the land owners and the local villagers. So the host association decided to buy time and explored the possibility of running it as a tarmac rally in Nashik in January 2013. However, the drivers and teams did not agree for the change as it would require a new set of tyres, suspensions and brakes.

The cancellation means that even the revised four-round championship comprising Bangalore, Coorg, Chikmagalur and Ahmednagar could not be completed and only two rounds are held. Thus, the champions are declared on the basis of the two rallies: K1000 and Coffee Day.

“The proposed third round of INRC 2012, the Rally of Maharashtra, could not be held on the scheduled date as the organisers did not get the required permissions from the land owners for the route of some of the gravel stages,” FMSCI Chief Executive Rajan Syal said in a statement.

“WISA, the organisers, then explored the alternative to run it as a tarmac event in first week of January 2013. But many of the competitors said that it will require a new set of tarmac tyres, suspensions and brakes, and due to the  holiday season, they may not get the parts in time
and thereby will not be in a position to participate.”

“Taking into account the feedback of all concerned, we are left with no option but to close the INRC 2012 and declare the Championship results at the end of the Coffee Day Rally of Chikmagalur,” Syal’s statement read.

After the end of Chikmagalur Rally, Amittrajit Ghosh and co-driver Ashwin Naik topped the championship table with 51 points. Lohitt Urs and co-driver Sujith Kumar are placed second with 45 points followed by Karna Kadur and Somonnita Ghosh at 38.

By David Bodapati

Polibetta (Coorg), 20 Oct 2012: Heavy rains that lashed the region on Friday rendered the dirt stages unfit for rallying and the Rally of Coorg, the second round of the Indian National Rally Championship, was cancelled here on Saturday.

Steward Farad Bathena made a visit to the stages early in the morning and after his report, the stewards, headed by Zayn Khan, took a decision to cancel the rally and made an announcement to the drivers and co-drivers at 9 am at the service park, near the hockey ground in Ammathi town.

“The stages were completely damaged due to the overnight rains and the stewards felt that they were unsafe for conducting a rally,” said Zayn Khan, the Chief Steward.

Initially, some drivers wanted the route to be reduced and conduct at least 55 per cent distance including the Super Special Stage but with some of the drivers opposing the idea no efforts were made to run the rally. “ We have done everything for the smooth conduct of the rally. But we will abide by the stewards decision as safety of the drivers is of utmost importance,” said Jaidas Menon, the head of Motorsport Inc, the hosts.

The FMSCI rally championship will now move to Chikmagalur in the last week-end of November for the next leg.

Note: This article is manually migrated from archives.

By David Bodapati

Coimbatore, 24 July 2011:  With only rival Arjun Rao Aroor going off the track in the very first stage today, Speed King Gaurav Gill, the Team MRF’s lead driver, for once faced the challenge of `driving slowly’ and showed enough maturity to win the event while it was the `Kadur’ brand that stole the limelight as Karna Kadur, with co-driver Somonnita Ghosh, the only lady navigator, won the 2000cc class in the third round of the Speed Indian National Rally Championship here on Sunday.

Gill, ably navigated by veteran Musa Sherif, did play to the gallery in the Super Special Stage with the display of technique and dare-devil speed to provide seat-edged excitement to the packed crowd and they responded in style with standing applause. But today, he played safe and won the rally.

Kadur and Ghosh are two famous motorsport names of yesteryears and today the next generation in Karna Kadur and co-driver Somonnita Ghosh, who were trailing behind Vikram Devadasan (co-driver Somayya AG) rallied brilliantly in the two stages to take a decisive lead. The Bangalore-Kolkata duo brought their Mitsubishi Cedia safely home to make it a back-to-back victory and took the lead in the championship. After a year’s hiatus, Karna returned to win the South India Rally in Chennai while Somonnita, took part in a one-off race with her father Arindam Ghosh as the driver. Coimbatore turned out to be their hunting ground as they made their winning debut here in 2009. Meanwhile, Overdrive editor Sirish Chandran (Nikhil Pai) who finished 2.2 seconds behind Shailendra Hegde (Prajwal Pai) was pushed up to the third place as Shailendra Hegde and Prajwal Pai logged a road penalty of 1.10 seconds for checking in early.

In the 1600 cc class, Karan AM drove to a victory as navigator Shanmuga returned after a 5-year hiatus to INRC  followed by Prakhyat Shirole (codriver Rupesh Kholay) in second and  Sidhartha Rangnekar (Nitin Jacob) in third.

In the Gypsy class, a support rally, Veteran Sanjay Agarwal (Shivprakash) notched up a facile win with Shafeeq ur Rehman (Adhiraj Bardhan) chasing a lead of over 7 minutes. John K Philip and Philip Thomas finished third.

Final results (provisional unaudited partial classification):

Overall: Gaurav Gill/Musa Sherif (Team MRF) 1 (1hr, 37 mins, 34.6 secs); Arjun Balu/ Sujith Kumar BS (MRF) 2 (1: 38: 12.7); Karna Kadur/ Somonnito Ghosh 3 (1: 44:45.7).

2000cc (Group N): Karna Kadur/ Somonnito Ghosh 1 (1: 44: 45.5); Vikram Devadasen  / Somayya AG (Pvt) 2 (1: 43: 56.4); Sirish Chandran/ Nikhil Pai (Team Overdrive) 3 (1: 44: 45.7); Shilendra Hegde/ Prajwal Pai 4(1: 43: 30,5).  

1600cc: Balram CG/ Santosh Kumar 1 (1: 55: 58.4 including 10 sec penalty); Prakhyat Shirole/ Rupesh Kholay (pvt) 1 (1: 56:38.0); Siddhartha Rangnekar / Nitin Jacob 3 (1: 57: 13.4);

1400cc (Star Cup): Karan AM / Shanmuga SN (Kari Motorsports)1 (1:52: 40:.2); Vikram Rao/ S Dinesh 2 (1:57:00.0); Vineeth Vincent Tom / Sob George 3 (1: 57: 37.1).

Gypsy – stock: Sanjay Agarwal / Shivaprakash E 1 (1:53:14.3); Shafeeq-ur-Rehman / Adhiraj Bardhan 2 (2:00:00.2); John K Philip/ Philip Thomas 3 (2:09:51.1).