Sunday, Nov 16, 2003
Sunday, Nov 16, 2003 |
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Racing : Motor
However, Karandip, the 29-year old from Chandigarh, driving a Honda City V-Tec, still had his fingers crossed, hoping that his good run in this event will hold until Sunday afternoon. On a day that saw three of the 17 cars dropping out due to mechanical failures, Arjun Balu and co-driver Kumar Ramaswamy, winners of the previous round in Goa, finished second, ahead of seven times National champion N. Leelakrishnan and co-driver Farooq Ahmed, also of Team MRF, by five seconds. In overall fourth position were Vikram Mathias and co-driver Sujith Kumar of Team MRF, who made up considerable ground after a disappointing run in the Spectator Stage, last night when he suffered a broken strut in the day's second Special Stage. The reigning National champion V. R. Naren Kumar (co-driver D. Ramkumar) of Team MRF were in overall fifth position, eight seconds behind Mathias.Naren, who is leading the Championship race by 24 points, needs to finish third in this event to clinch the title. Given the nature of the terrain and the tight and twisty routes, the going was rather slow, especially in the Power Special Stage (8.50 Kms) that forced the cars to run in just second gear. Under the circumstances, the competitors pushed their vehicles in the longer, Eagleton Special Stage (9.05 kms). Karandip set the pace from the start, and was the fastest in four of the six Special Stages, but like the rest of the competitors, eased up considerably in the latter half of the day in an attempt to nurse the car through to the finish on the morrow. "My car is running well, and hopefully, my luck will hold tomorrow," said an anxious Karandip. In the INRC 1400cc class, there was excitement at the very start of the day. Lohit V Urs (co-driver MK Bopanna), who jointly leads the championship in this category along with Rahul Kantharaj (co-driver Vivek Bhat), packed up with gearbox problems. It left the field open for Kantharaj who drove sensibly in his MPFI Esteem. Competition in the Rally Star Cup promised much in the early stages. Sanjay Agarwal (co-driver Manoj Menon) topped in their category, but then had to pack up with a broken drive-shaft to leave Ranjith Ballal (Shanmuga SN) and Arjun Rao Aroor (Ashwin Naik) to battle it out. Provisional (unaudited) classifications (Leg 1): INRC Overall: Team MRF (Karandip Singh/Jaidas Menon) 1 (45 minutes, 41 secs); Team MRF (Arjun Balu/Kumar Ramaswamy) 2 (46:17); Team MRF (N Leelakrishnan/Farooq Ahmed) 3 (46:22); Team MRF (Vikram Mathias/BS Sujith Kumar) 4 (46:26); Team MRF (VR Naren Kumar/D Ramkumar) 5 (46:34); Jiby Maliakkal/Nikhil Pai 6 (47:57). INRC 1400cc: Rahul Kantharaj/Vivek Bhat 1 (48:22); Karthikeyan R/Sathish G 2 (50:55). Rally Star Cup: Ranjith Ballal/Shanmuga S N 1 (47:40); Team Servo (Arjun Rao Aroor/Ashwin Naik) 2 (48:10); Ram Prashanth/Thiru Murthy 3 (48:10); Prithveen Rajan/PVS Murthy 4 (49:17); Arun Kumar/Lohit Anand 5 (49:59); Anitha Kholay/Rashmi Bopanna 6 (54:21).
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