Chetan Shivram, Dilip Sharan emerge overall winners in the Rally of Coimbatore: INRC Round 2

Coimbatore, 11 August 2019: Brothers Chetan Shivram and Dilip Sharan of Team Akshara, played a cautious game and focussed on keeping the car on track with a safety-first approach, to chalk-out a deserving win in the Rally of Coimbatore, the second round of the fmsci Indian National Rally Championship (INRC), promoted Champions Yacht Club, at the Windmill farms of Kethanur, near here on Sunday.

Chetan painted the town yellow in his stock Volkswagen Polo prepared by FRK Racing and supported by Ideal Racing and displayed controlled aggression with his brother Sharan calling the notes. The focussed Bengaluru duo weathered a sustained challenge from Race Concepts’ Younus Ilyas and Harish Gowda, the INRC Sprint champions and won by a narrow margin of 4.6 seconds. Further behind, the talented youngster from Kerala Arakkal Fabid Ahmer, with co-driver Sanath Gopalan, also in a Polo prepared by Chettinad Sporting came third for Team Champions. Fabid who was trailing 5th overnight also won the second place in the INRC 3 class.

Nurturing their four-second lead was made easy as overnight second-placed privateer Suhem Kabeer and co-driver Jeevarathinam clocked 14min, 43.10sec and lost time in the 6th stage to Chetan’s 8:21.30, as they got stuck in the slush but behind them Younus Ilyas (Harish) of Race Concepts who were running third, started reducing the 19-second gap. Chetan Shivaram, however, managed to cling on to the lead and not only won the overall title but also topped the INRC 3 category. Despite losing six minutes or so, Suhem held on to the third place in INRC 2 class but lost the overall podium finishing 15th. Younus was ahead in two of the three stages but that was not enough as they settled for overall second place.

But Younus and Harish had the consolation bagging the title in the INRC 2 category. For the record, it was the doctor from Kerala, Bikku Babu, along with co-driver Milen George who won all the three stages today with top-notch driving. But the experienced Kerala duo found it too difficult to make up the time, over an hour, which they lost in SS5 on Saturday.

But the highlight of the day was the drive from talented youngster from Mangalore Dean Mascarenhas, who fielded his VW Polo as a privateer along with navigator Shruptha Padival. The duo who are leading the championship coming into Round 2, lost a lot of time on Saturday but made tremendous progress jumping 32 places to finish overall 10th and had the bonus of a second place in the INRC 2 category.

While many started today to get leg points, 17 cars failed to finish among the 57 that took the start on Saturday. Pre-event favourites Gaurav Gill and Musa Sherif of Team Mahindra Adventure once again suffered for want of dependable machine and finished 44th in line with teammates Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik who were 43rd. Karna Kadur and Nikhil Pai of Arka Motorsports too had a forgettable event finishing 50th overall.

In the SUV Challenge, Team Champions swept the podium winning all the top-three places.  Lokesh Gowda and co-driver Sudhindra BG won the support class while Gagan Karumbaiah and Thimmu Uddapanda pair came second followed by veteran Sanjay Agarwal and Smitha N.

The next round of the championship will move to Jodhpur in Rajasthan from Septemeber 20 to 22. Kochi, Bengaluru, and Chikkamagaluru will host the last three rounds respectively in November and December.

Provisional unaudited final results: Overall: 1. Chetan Shivram/ Dilip Sharan (Team Akshara, VW Polo) (1hr 33min 51.7sec); 2. Younus Ilyas/ Harish Gowda (Race Concepts, Mitsubishi Cedia) (1:33.56.3); 3. Fabid Ahmer / G Sanath (Team Champions, VW Polo) (1:34.54.4).

INRC 2: 1. Younus Ilyas / Harish Gowda (Race Concepts, Cedia) (1:33:56.3); 2. Dean Mascarenhas / Shruptha Padival (Privateer, VW Polo) (1:38.33.8); 3. Suhem Kabeer / Jeevarathinam (Pvt, VW Polo)(1:40.17.00).

INRC 3: 1. Chetan Shivram / Dilip Sharan (Team Akshara, Polo) (1:33:51.7); 2. Fabid Ahmer / G Sanath (Team Champions, Polo); 3. Aditya Thakur / Virender Kashyap (Chettinad Sporting, VW Polo) (1:35.55.7).

INRC 4: 1. Vaibhav Marate / SSB Arjun (Team Champions, Honda City) (1:38:27.0); 2. Manoj Mohanan / Francis Sachin (Kari Sports, (Maruti Suzuki Baleno) (1:39.41.1); 3. Rakshith Iyer / Chandrashekar (Team Champions, Honda City) (1:40.27.0).

Support event: SUV Challenge: 1. Lokesh Gowda / Sudhindra BG (Team Champions, Honda CRV) (1:39.50.3); 2. Gagan Karumbaiah / Thimmu Uddapanda (Team Champions, Gypsy) (1:39.55.8); 3. Sanjay Agarwal / Smitha N (Team Champions, Maruti Suzuki Gypsy) (1:41.49.0).

Junior INRC: 1. Fabid Ahmer / Sanath Gopalan (Team Champions, VW Polo) (1:34.54.4); 2. Rakshith Iyer/ Chandrashekar (Team Champions, Honda City) (1:40.27.0); 3. Chandan KM/ Suraj M (Snap Racing, VW Polo) (1:43.52.8).

Note: SUV Results were corrected after the official revision on 14th August.