Coimbatore all set for 4w INRC Round 3 at Wind-mill farms

Coimbatore, 28 Jan 2021: Gaurav Gill the King of Indian Motorsports and his trusted navigator Musa Sherif, who won both the back-to-back rounds in Arunachal Pradesh will start as favourites in the Rally of Coimbatore, the third round of the Champions Yacht Club fmsci Indian National Rally Championship for 4-wheelers 2020 at the Kethanoor wind-mill farms on Saturday and Sunday.

Organised by Coimbatore Auto Sports Club (CASC) and promoted by Champions Yacht Club, the premier rally event under the aegis of the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs in India (fmsci) attracted a huge number of 61 entries in top four classes. The top-INRC contenders A-seeded Gaurav Gill- Musa Sherif, will be spearhead their challenge in the Mahindra XUV 300, while Karna Kadur and Nikhil Pai will be behind the wheel of a Volkswagen Polo 1.6 INRC NA. Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik will be in the other Mahindra XUV300 to completed the three INRC entries.

The top INRC class will also see talented Younus Ilyas and Harish KN, in a Race Concepts prepared Mitsubishi Cedia while the INRC Round 3, will see the return of Philippos Matthai with veteran stalwart Kumar Ramaswamy, making a comeback, after he last called the notes, for a one off rally for both Akbar Ebrahim. They will be driving a Mahindra XUV500.

Dean Mascarenhas, along with co-driver Shruptha Padival, also in a VW Polo 1.6 INRC2 and will have Dr Speed, Bikku Babu (co-driver Bonny Thomas) and defending champion driver Chetan Shivaram with a new navigator in Sahid Salman, also in a VW Polo 1.6. All three are A-seeded drivers and will be fighting for honours in INRC2 and Overall categories.

The INRC3 category is filled with talented youngsters, led by steady driver Fabid Ahmer (co-driver Eldo K Chacko, who will face stiff competition from youngsters like Aditya Thakur (co-drier Virender Kashyap), and Round 1 winners Maninder Singh Prince and Vinay Padmashali. Besides Arjun Rao and Shanmuga SN too can be a black horse on their day. All are on VW Polos.

The Green car of Mujeeb Rehman and co-driver Goutham CP will now be with the Yellows as the INRC4 winner in Itanagar was roped in immediately after his win by the JK Tyre team. Lanusanen Pongener, the Round 1 winner will have a new navigator in Rohit N and the first INRC round winner from Nagaland can spring a surprise on his day. The other favourites are Mysore brothers Rakshit Iyer (co-drier M Chandrasekhar) and Rohit Iyer along with navigator Manjunath (Times Manju).

It will be interesting to see the mother-daughter couple come back after missing the first two rounds. Shivani, who just graduated as a Doctor, will be joined by navigator mom, Dr Deepthi Pruthvi. The other talented lady driver Pragathi Gowda who won the Junior INRC, will not have her debut partner, Deekshita as her navigator. Trisha Jagannath will make the calls for Pragathi, while Deekshita Balakrishna will be navigating for Chikmagalur drier Asad Pasha, all three in a Polo in INRC3. The other lady driver Khyati Mody with co-driver Mahesh Nandi will be in a Honda City in INRC4. Co-driver Smitha Prasad will be the other lady co-driver navigating for Sanjay Aggarwal in a Gypsy.

The rally has two physical stages, 19.25km of Black Thunder and 14.25km of Thunder World. Both the stages will be run twice on Saturday and once on Sunday for a total Special Stage distance of 100.5km and along with a liaison distance of 35.94km, will make up the 136.44km rally route.

Zayn Khan, who missed the first two rounds, and became the first Virtual Steward in the history of INRC will be back as the Chief Steward with D Ramkumar and R Mahendran as the other stewards, with the former doubling up as FMSCI observer. Both Ramkumar and Mahendran are stars of yester years with Mahendran winning the first INRC round in 1988 along with L Gopalakrishnan. Ramkumar was a key winning partner for many years to champion Naren Kumar.

S Ramesh Kumar will be the Technical Delegate while Shyam Kumar, will be the Safety Officer. In Itanagar, Shyam performed the roles of Steward, Observer and Safety Delegate for both the rounds. J Prithviraj will be the Clerk of the Course.

K1000 will the fourth and final round, to be held near Bengaluru from Feb 12 to 14 in a truncated INRC Calendar of 2020 which was hit by COVID pandemic.