The husband-wife duo of Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D’Souza from Bangalore claimed the overall and Pro-expert class titles in the opening round of the inaugural edition of the JK Tyre-FMSCI Indian National TSD Rally championship.

The two, who have done well on the TSD circuit with podium finishes in four of the major rallies this year in their Maruti Grand Vitara, completed the race with a penalty time of a mere 52 seconds in the Berunda Adventure Sports Club-run event on Sunday.

“Obviously, the two of us are very happy and our victory is due to a team effort as it involves understanding and co-ordination between driver and navigator. In addition, the competition was so close that anybody could’ve won,” said Gopalkrishnan. 

The Erode-based team of KP Karthick Maruti and Sankar Anand, driving a Maruti Esteem, had a penalty of 1:02 to settle for the second spot, while Chandigarh’s Jagmeet Gill and Yogesh Gupta came home a further fifteen seconds behind to claim the third spot.Another Bangalore duo -- Chidananda Murthy and BS Sujith Kumar -- won the Pro-stock title with a penalty of three minutes and 15 seconds. Ramprashanth and C Sakthivel, also from Bangalore, came second (3:32 penalty) while Erode’s S Senthil Kumar and P Velusamy bagged the third spot with a penalty of four minutes and 45 seconds.Erode’s presence in the championship was again felt as B Manikanda and A Parthipan took home the honours in the Novice class.

Kolkata’s Deepali Poddar and her navigator Ipsita Das won the honours in the All-Ladies class with a penalty of four minutes and 58 seconds.

In the wake of the incident which involved the death of Bangalore-based driver Jitender Shukla and and navigator Ashish Mahajan in the TSD class of the J&K Mughal Rally, the BASC had installed GPS (Global Positioning System) in all cars and handed out accurate Tulip cards to help the participants during the race, even though the 265-km course course was less tedious compared to the J&K route. 

Final classifications: Overall/ Pro-Expert: Satish Gopalkrishnan/ Savera D’Souza (Bangalore, Maruti Grand Vitara, 52 seconds penalty); KP Karthick Maruthi/ Sankar Anand (Erode, Maruti Esteem, 1:02) 1; Jagmeet Gill/ Yogesh Gupta (Chandigarh, VW Vento, 1:17) 3. Pro-Stock: Chidananda Murthy/ BS Sujith Kumar (Bangalore, TATA Indica Vista, 3:15) 1; Ramprashath/ C Sakthivel (Bangalore, Honda City, 3:32) 2; S Senthil Kumar/ P Velusamy (Erode, Peugeot, 4:45) 3.

Novice: B Manikandan/ A Parthipan (Erode, Mahindra Scorpio, 6:29) 1; Baskaran G/ P Ganesan (Erode, Maruti Esteem, 7:07) 2; T Sujith/ Shahid Salman (Bangalore, Fiat Punto, 7:53) 3. All ladies: Deepali Poddar/ Ipsita Das (Kolkata, Maruti Alto, 4:58) 1.