My first rally diary; Majithia-Vijayant win Coorg rally

By Bodapati David

Bengaluru: This is a Diary piece. Not just a rally report. It dates back to two decades. But am adding this today, the 2nd of May, 2020. Thanks to the results by Scorp News, which George Francis gave me in 2004 when we started this site. One day, when Carona passes, I will dig out my own Indian Express report.

Dateline: Madikeri, 10 Nov 1996: I am going to write about my first experience of a live rally after joining Indian Express Bangalore edition in 1996. Forgive me, but you have to bear with me. I have followed many rallies and many rounds of Indian National Rally Championship but this is the first assignment as a journalist and I am writing for Indian Express as an official representative, having been deputed to report the event.

Let me begin with how it all started. I am here, after being transferred to Bangalore from Andhra Pradesh. The Bangalore sports desk of the Indian Express was one of the strongest centres in the country of 19 Express editions. There were big stalwarts. But Mr Anand Philar, Mr Joseph Hooever, and Mr Shree Kumar have left the centre recently. So here I am, doing my bit to fill the vacuum.

Having known Mr Anand Philar, I was thrilled to know that my former boss is also travelling to Coorg and quickly connected, and he graciously agreed to my request. I joined him in one of my first trips to a `live rally’ in my life as a sports journalist, which was going to be a routine fixture, in future… travelling with the `Encyclopedia of Motorsports in India’ has taught me a lot and made me a complete person. My last trip has been to MMRT, just before the lockdown, the last domestic motorsports event in India.

That cold winter night in Bangalore, I got up at 3 am and was all set, preparing myself thoroughly for the Rally Reporting. My Express colleagues and seniors, Vedam and Sharan have given me some useful tips and Roopa too joined to chip in with some kind advice on how to send the copy. There were no emails those days, you know. I had to send it through a teleprinter from a Post Office. I was privileged to have a BSNL smart card which many of my respected colleagues in Bangalore did not have. That was because I was in a remote place and had to travel to places which were virtually cut-off from the world. I was in Vizianagaram, which got me this smart card that allows you to send telegrams, make trunk calls and send reports by Teleprinter from BSNL offices without making any pre-payment. They are reverse-charged to Indian Express, similar to the Call-collect lines of AT & T of USA, those days.

Mr Philar was gracious enough to allow me to accompany him in his Maruti 800. We started at 5 am sharp, and had travelled about two hours when I experienced some shooting pain. I had a bad tooth and the ghat section and the bumpy roads seemed to make it worse and I began to experience the worst kind of a pain in my first motorsports assignment for my new posting. I joined Express seven years back but there were no motorsports in Andhra.

Anand was kind enough to help me with all the unwanted stops and we did buy some pain killers which kept me going and he made the first stop at a dentist’s place as soon as we reached Madikeri, I did get my tooth filled in a quick 30-minute stop and the hotel, the rally headquarters, was not quite far from there.

By about 12 noon, we were at the HQ.

One of the first Rally personalities I met was Chinnappa. “This is CK Chinnappa, a legend,’’ was how Anand described him in short. Chinni, here is David, he said.

Chinni was sitting on a small step on the door-way of an annexe building of the resort, with the revered audience like Hari Singh, Arjun Balu and Leelakrishnan, among others. I am blissfully unaware of all these legends, who were great drivers in their own right, with whom I had the privilege of company, and watched them in action for many seasons to come in the next 20 years.

Chinni reeled out stories galore that were nostalgic and laid the foundation for me to get entrenched in motorsports. In his typical enchanting narration…

The Rally was conducted by the Indian Automotive Sports Club (IASC) and it was a new format. There will be some Special Stages. The roads and routes will be closed and it would be a no-man’s land. As envisioned by the international Special Stage Rallying rules, the Coorg Rally, named the 14th Castrol Rallye de Endurance, will follow the format with 20 Special Stages in the Coffee Estates of The Consolidated Coffee Limited, co-organisers of the rally, a round of the Castrol National Rally Championship. The 134-km of Special Stages and about 483km of liaison distance, which means the transport section was part of the rally.

Having won in Cochin and Delhi rounds, the Sardars from Delhi, Hari Singh and GS Mann were the hot favourites and were expected to take an easy victory for a hat-trick of wins. But that was not to be with teammates Bikram Singh Majithia and co-driver Vijayant Chowdhry, also of JK tyre, taking the lead and winning the rally with ease, with a huge two minute, three-second gap over second-placed Team MRF drivers Arjun Balu and Kumar Ramaswamy.

The JK guys are called as `Yellow Lightning’ while the MRF drivers went by the name `Red Thunder’, explained George Francis, another giant in motorsports media, with whom I spent my first rally assignment on stages. Amidst all these things, I noticed and eked in the memory two things. Arjun Balu, the driver and the blue Chettinadu team, as privateers, among all the Yellow and Red battles. I endeared myself and was attracted to them for the next two decades or so.

For the record, the rally was won by Majithia and Vijayant, the Overall winners from the stable of JK Tyre while MRF’s Arjun Balu and co-driver Kumar took the second place. Nikhil Taneja and Sandeep Lal came third. While Nikhil took the top spot in the Group N, Leelakrishnan and Farooq took the third Overall place.

Provisional Results:

Overall: 1. Bikram Singh Majithia/ Vijayant Chowdhry (JK Tyre) (2:22:46); 2. Arjun Balu/Kumar Ramaswamy (Team MRF) (2:24:49); 3. Nikhil Taneja/ Sandeep Lal (JK Tyre).

Group A: 1. Bikram Singh Majithia/ Vijayant Chowdhry (JK Tyre) (2:22:46); 2. Arjun Balu/Kumar Ramaswamy (Team MRF) (2:24:49); 3. N Leelakrishnan/ Farooq Ahmed (Team MRF) (2:27:36).

Group N: (Provisional): 1. Nikhil Taneja/ Sandeep Lal (JK Tyre);  2. Ravi Jouhari/ Deepak Jouhari (2:32:57); 3. Atikur Rehman/ Sanjeev Shah (2:37:48).