The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : Naren aiming for the podium

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Friday, May 11, 2007
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Sport - Racing : Motor

Naren aiming for the podium

Chennai: Former National champion Naren Kumar of Team Rally India, a debutant in the Asia Pacific Rally, is aiming for a podium finish in the second leg of the event, though he described the leg as most challenging one.

``We had our recce today. The four stages for the first two legs are one of the fastest and most challenging roads I have ever envisaged before in rallies. The rally route is the same as the one used for the World rally championship previously,'' Naren told PTI over phone from Whangarie, New Zealand.

Naren and his navigator D. Ramkumar, who finished with a surprise fourth place in the first leg of the season opener in New Calidonia last month, said, ``the leg one and two of the rally has four stages each repeated twice. Leg one is medium speed with slippery surface and leg two is very high speed with lot of blind corners.''

The favourite for the title and winner of the first leg last month, Jussi Valimaki of Japan, a former champion of the rally in 2005, had decided to skip this event.

However, entries for this second leg is rather strong with the presence of defending champion and FIA's `A' priority driver Cody Crocker (Ben Atkinson) of Australia in his Suberu Impreza WRX and Yanagisawa Hiroshi (Misaizu Tadashi) of Japan. — PTI

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