Gaurav Gill-Musa Sherif steal the limelight winning K1000

By David Bodapati

Bangalore, 21 Aug 2011: Speed maestro Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif) and Lohit Urs (Srinivasa Murthy), who stole the limelight in the Super Special Stage today, made it a 1-2 for Team MRF, in the 37^th edition of the K-1000, the fourth round of the Speed Indian National Rally Championship here on Sunday.

Overnight rains made the terrain slushy and the organisers were forced to cancel the last stage, SS9, for safety reason but it was the 29-year-old Delhi daredevil Gill, who controlled his speed and displayed enough maturity to sacrifice speed to win the rally with a comfortable margin while teammate Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik) was not so lucky as he broke his drive shaft after clocking the fastest time in the first Special Stage of the day. Only two Cedias finished the 2000cc N plus category while overnight leader Karna Kadur (Somonnita Ghosh) also failed to cross the last hurdle, SS 8, and local drivers Rahul Kantharaj (codriver Vivek Bhatt) took the championship lead once again with a brilliant win here.

Brothers Balaram CG and Raghuram won the 1600 cc while it was 18-year old Mangalorean Dean Mascarenhas (Shruptha Padival) who thrilled the spectators with high speeds as he drove his Maruthi Esteem with aplomb. Sanjay Agarwal bounced back in the Gypsy (stock) class to keep the lead in the national championship.

Results after Day 1: (Provisional unaudited partial classification):

Overall: Gaurav Gill/Musa Sherif (Team MRF) 1 (1 hour, 14 min, 48.0 seconds); Lohit V Urs/ Srinivasa Murthy (Team MRF) 2, (1:16:07.0); Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Y Bhatt 3 (1:23:30.0).

2000cc N Plus: Gill/Musa Sherif (Team MRF) 1 (1 hour, 14 min, 48.0 seconds); Lohit V Urs/ Srinivasa Murthy (Team MRF) 2, (1:16:07.0);

2000cc (Group N): Rahul Kantharaj/ Vivek Y Bhatt 1 (1:23:30.0); Sreeharsh SD/ Uday Kumar D 2 (1: 25: 20.0).

1600cc: Balram CG/ Raghuram CG 1 (1: 27: 04.0); Hanoosh Suraneni/ Ravindra Kumar 2 (1:30: 30.0);  Siddharth Rangnekar/ Nitin Jacob 3 (1:31:44:0).

1400cc (Star Cup): Dean Mascarenhas/ Shruptha Padival 1 (1: 25.16.0); Karan AM / Shanmuga SN (Kari Motorsports) 2 (1:27:07:0); Pramod Raman /Harish KN 3 (1: 28: 47.0).

Gypsy Cup (modified T1): Sandeep Sharma/ Venu Ramesh Kumar 1 (1:28: 35.0).

Gypsy Cup (Stock T2): Sanjay Agarwal / Shivaprakash E 1 (1:28: 28.0);Shafeeq Ur Rahman/ Ajith KP 2 (1: 29.44.0); Alok Mishra/ Rohit Arya 3 (1: 43:46.0).