Satish, Savera claim top prize in Desert Storm rally

The 12th Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm, the annual six-day marathon motorsport event, ended here on Saturday after traversing approximately 2,200 kilometers of the difficult desert terrain.

The top prize in the Rally Ndure category went to Satish Gopalkrishnan and navigator Savera D’Souza, driving a Grand Vitara for Team Maruti Suzuki. Satish, the software guru from Bangalore, is the man who developed the TSD metre to change the face of time-speed-distance rallying in the country. Second in Rally Ndure is the team of Pratap Thakur and navigator Dhiraj Arora, driving a Maruti Gypsy, while Ashish Budhia and navigator Arindam Ghosh was third.

In Rally Xtreme, the first prize went to Sunny Sidhu of Chandigarh with navigator PVS Murthy. The second prize was won by Sandeep Sharma of Delhi and Varun Davessar of Chandigarh, driving a Maruti Gypsy. In Rally Xplore, Rajesh Chalana and navigator Yogesh Gupta ranked first, driving an SX4 for Team Maruti Suzuki. Second in the category was Nitin Yadav with navigator Ravi Bansal while Sanjay Takale with navigator Mustafa, driving for Team Maruti Suzuki, signed off third.

In Rally Moto (Motorcycles), CS Santosh of Bangalore retained his title as India’s top biker by ranking first.