Former Asia Pacific Rally Championship champion Karamjit Singh overcame technical glitches to clock the fastest time on the long and winding Special Stage I of the Coffee Day Rally here at the Amber Valley School grounds on Friday.
Karamjit’s drive, which was craftily orchestrated by his navigator Jagdev Singh, won him the best honours with a time of one hour, 27 minutes and 58.2s in the Indian Rally Championship class but the times set in the newly-included category are not considered for the overall championship.
The honour of claiming overall honours on the second day of the final round of the Indian National Rally Championship went to Arjun Rao and his navigator Satish Rajagopal astride their Volkswagen Polo. Arjun cut the tape in a time of 1::29:42.7 in the INRC 1600cc category. Arjun’s drive was all the more worthy of praise given that 19 out of the 38 starters crashed out of the stage, including the likes of recently-crowned APRC champion Gaurav Gill and Samit Thapar, who had held the lead at the end of the Super Special Stage on Thursday.
One of the biggest surprises on the day was a stunning drive put forth by a young Suhem MK in the Junior INRC class. The youngster not only topped the charts in the JINRC, his spectacular drive propelled him to the third spot on the overall standing at the end of the day. The rally will conclude on Saturday when the three Special Stages which will be run once.
Results (Special Stage I): INRC Overall: Arjun Rao/ Satish Rajagopal (VW Polo, 1::29:42.7) 1; Vikram Devadasen/ Ashwin Naik (Mitsubishi Cedia, 1::34:12.3) 2; Suhem MK/ Jeevarathinam (Maruti Baleno, 1::34:19.1) 3. INRC 2000cc: Vikram/ Ashwin (1::34:12.3) 1; Dr Bikku Babu/ George Verghese (Mitsubishi Cedia, 1::34:44.6) 2; Prithvi Dominic/ Ravindra MS (Mitsubishi Cedia, 1::34:53.3) 3. INRC 1600cc: Arjun/ Satish (1::29:42.7) 1; Sirish Chandran/ Nikhil Pai (Slideways Industries, VW Polo, 1::34:45.8) 2; Hrishikesh Thackersey/ Ninad Mirajgaonkar (VW Polo, 1::40:05.5) 3. JINRC: Suhem/ Jeevarathinam (1::34:19.1) 1; Rohan Pawar/ Arjun Mehta (Slideways Industries, VW Polo, 1::37:44.0) 2; Dhruva C/ Roopesh BC (Maruti Esteem, 1::38:55.7) 3. SUV NRC: Sunny Sidhu/ PVS Murthy (Mahindra Adventure Rally, XUV 500, 1::31:24.8) 1; Lohitt Urs/ Bonnie Thomas (Mahindra Adventure Rally, XUV 500, 1::36:03.4) 2. IRC: Karamjit Singh/ Jagdev Singh (Slideways Industries, VW Polo R2, 1::27:58.2) 1; Sumit Panjabi/ Venu Ramesh Kumar (Mitsubishi Cedia, 1::40:15.0) 2; Shyam Chellappan/ Sob George (Maruti Baleno, 1::52:46.4) 3. New: Vikram Mathias/ Vivek Ponnusamy (Team Jungle Hut, Volkswagen Polo TDI) 1::39:26.9.