Lohit Urs, Bonnie Thomas win Overall honours by 3 seconds

Chandigarh, 31 October 2004: Talented Mysore driver Lohit Urs and co-driver Bonnie Thomas pipped reigning National champion Naren Kumar and co-driver D Ramkumar of team MRF by a narrow margin to clinch their maiden overall win clinching the Power M1 Challenge, the fifth round of the Indian National RAlly Championship (INRC), which concluded at Shimla on Sunday.

Winning the rally by a thin margin of three seconds, the 25-year Mysore star steered his Maruti Baleno ahead of the multiple national champion announced his arrival into the big league scoring the biggest win of his career. Though Lohit also suffered mechanical issues like Naren, his overnight lead proved a big advantage as he mixed aggression with caution to safeguard the lead for a stunning win.

However, Naren Kumar and D Ramkumar, who won in Bangalore and Goa, continue to lead the table in the National Championship standing with a tally 44 points, with the 13 earned here. Vikram Mathais and co-driver Sujith Kumar, also of Team MRF, who took the overall win in Cochin, are in second place garnering 29 points.

Lohit Urs earned 15 points here and is currently in 4th place, behind Prithveen Rajan, who is in the third place with 23 points.

Prithveen Rajan and co-driver PV Srinivasa Murthy won the 1400cc category with another impressive outing and is leading the championship standings in this class, nine points ahead of Arjun Rao Aroor and co-driver Shanmuga S, who were trailing him overnight by 22 seconds. Arjun tried hard and reduced the lead by 12 seconds but had to be content with a second place. Prithveen came third overall while Chandigarh driver Sunny Sidhu, came fourth overall.

Running six stages on Saturday and all the tops cars took a beating and both Lohit and Naren opted for a mixed startegy but still went flat out with considerable ground to make. Naren had a misfortune in the very first stage as he broke the struts of his front and rear right wheels but carried on gamely conceding just a two-second lead to Urs.

And battle is going strong till the last stage with both in striking distnce but suddenly misfortune struck Urs this time as he suffered a flat in the rear left. But the Mysore lad drove through the 12.6-km stage and conceded 30 seconds to Naren. But that was enough as he scraped through by just three seconds, clinging on to the victory

“I knew that the stages would get harder every time, so planned my drive accordingly and my car stood the trial,” said a visibly-happy Lohit Urs. Making his debut in 1999, Lohit Urs saw his first major achievement winning the National title in 1400cc in 2003. But this is his first win in the overal category.

Naren was content collecting 13 important points in his quest for the championship. “In the first stage, I had hoped to catch some time on Lohit but I broke both my right struts. By then the lead was quite big, so I eased off in the last stage as I did not want to take unnecessary risks,” Naren said.

Provisional final classification:

Overall: 1. Lohit Urs/ Bonnie Thomas (Maruti Baleno) (2hours, 8min, 35sec); 2. Naren Kumar/D Ramkumar (Team MRF, Maruti Baleno) (2:08.38); 3. Prithveen Rajan/ PV Srinivas Murthy (Esteem) (2:13.05); 4. Sunny Sidhu/ Suresh Rana (Gypsy) (2:13.12); 4. Arjun Rao Aroor/ Shanmuga S (Esteem) (2:13.15).

1400cc class: 1. Prithveen Rajan/ PV Srinivas Murthy (Esteem) (2:13.05); 2. Arjun Rao Aroor/ Shanmuga S (Esteem) (2:13.15); 3. Ranjith Ballal/ Ramesh Kumar (Esteem) (2:17.36).

Gypsy Cup: 1. Sunny Siddhu/ Suresh Rana (2:13.12); 2. Along Iyer/ Zachumo Ezung (2:15.42); 3. Anil Wadia/ Pradeep Kumar (2:17.09).

Rally Star Cup: 1. Sanjay Agarwal/ Chandramouli (2:16.45); 2. Rajesh Gadakh/ Paritosh Kohok (2:26.19); 3. Faraz Khalid/ Arush Vohra (2:40.31).