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Team Chennai won the seven-day Reliability Class of Raid de Himalaya — 2006
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With bad luck, we would have gone careening down 4,000 feet on two occasions
TRUSTWORTHY TRIO Farhan Vohra, Krupesh Patel and Kunal Sood
Farhan Vohra, Krupesh Patel and Kunal Sood thought they would not advance beyond the fourth leg, but this three-member team from Chennai managed to win the seven-day Reliability Class of Raid de Himalaya (RDH) 2006.
Fatigued
At the end of day four, when they checked into an army camp at Patseo, they were so overtaken by fatigue as to not mind the mattresses that were as hard as cardboard. They did not wake up at regular intervals to keep the Scorpio's engine running. Diesel freezes at low temperatures, and the only way to prevent this is to keep the engine in action.
"Since we left Chennai in a hurry, I forgot to take a spare key along. Averse to the idea of leaving the SUV locked with the key inside, as the RDH rule required in the case of diesel vehicles, we decided each would wake up at some point of time in the night and run the engine," says Farhan who drove the jeep, while Krupesh handled the tulip chart and `numbers guy' Kunal, the TSD calculations.
As Krupesh had been fast asleep at 2 a.m., a nervous Farhan walked up to the park ferme at around 4.30 a.m. The park ferme is off-limits for the contestants, for fear that someone might tamper with a rival's car. Farhan explained the reason for flouting the rule to an official successfully and with trembling fingers, turned the ignition key. The effort was greeted with a grate. With the windshield temperature showing minus15, Farhan decided theirs was a lost case, but the second crank proved him wrong.
In 2005, a water pump failure resulted in the same team, sans Kunal, exiting from the rally. Following the Patseo incident, the Chennai team gained confidence, realising that Dame Luck was more forgiving this year. They were placed in the top position at the end of every leg that followed.
The three had entered the rally with the "the reasonable expectation of completing the rally". Farhan says the Raid de Himalaya gives the lie to the belief that `reliability trials' are for amateurs. "As is the case every year, 2006 witnessed the participation of four Indian National Rally Championship winners in Sanjay Agarwal, Moosa Sheriff, Ravi Agarwal and Purjit Singh."
Aware of the formidable line-up, Team Chennai was careful to avoid the pitfalls that caused them anxious moments during the previous edition. "While taking hairpin bends, we kept close to mountain wall. Last year, we had close shaves at Chatru and Losar. With a bit of bad luck, we would have gone careening down 4,000 feet on both occasions," says Krupesh. Moreover, an accident involving a team of journalists on day one acted as a sobering influence on the three. The Himalayan TSD rally is not a picnic drive. The course is strewn with dangers from start to finish. "The greatest threat comes from `black ice' that forms unnoticed on the roads. When there is a drop in the temperature after nightfall, the water that runs across the roads freezes into ice. Because the road is still visible through the translucent sheet of ice, a driver often does not realise the danger. Brakes can't handle black ice," says Krupesh.
First-time around on the Himalayan steeps, Kunal found day one extremely unsettling and "though the route got worse, the rest of the rally was not as daunting". Because of pep talk from the other two, who tutored him in precautionary measures, including the use of diamox tablets which thin the blood. "Actually, we were started on a course of diamox, ten days before the rally began," says Kunal.
"Although the rally was full of interesting sights such as a waterfall frozen for a length of 900 feet, we could not stop to take a closer look," says Farhan.
"There were some participants who stopped to take pictures, and then hurried to meet time control requirements. But we stayed focussed on the course."
PRINCE FREDERICK
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