Lohit Urs-Musa Sherif conquer Power Pine Forest Rally in Chandigarh

Chandigarh, 5 Nov 2006: The City Beautiful turned to be a hunting ground forMysore rally starLohit Urs as he paired with co-driver Musa Sherif to win the overall honours in the Power Pine Forest Rally, the fifth and penultimate round of the Motorsports Association of India (MAI) Indian National Rally Championship (INRC), which concluded at the Kala Gram grounds here on Sunday.

Lohit, who won the overall title here in 2004, returned to embrace victory once again to stop the barren run after his 2004 win, and it was Chandigarh once again which provided him with the win and the third overall victory of his career. The Special Stages in 2004 were in a different region.

Despite trailing overnight leader Sunny Sidhu of Team JK Tyre by 40 seconds, Urs never lifted his foot, off the peddle and pushed his Baleno all through the 15.75 km Fagla stage that was run thrice on Sunday. Urs finished the rally in a total time of 2:24: 44 seconds. Yes, he never lifted his foot, even when a dog ran on to his path, in the last stage of the day, but he swished to the side, brushing the dog’s tail and corrected the line in a jiffy with a expert’s touch and was back on the track.

Team JK Tyre’s Sunny Sidhu finished second in 2::24:39 and Vikram Mathias, also sporting the yellow colours, ended his barren streak, taking third in a time of 2:24:52. The rally also threw up the first National champion in the Gypsy Cup category, with the father-son duo of Ramesh Shanbhag and Sanket Shanbhag opening an unassailable lead ahead of the concluding round.

Even a second-placed finish would have been good enough to seal the title for the Shanbhags but leader Suresh Rana turned turtle in the day’s second stage and that was enough for the father-son duo to clinch the issue with a round to spare.

The final day saw home hero, Karandeep Singh, suffer casualty in the very first stage as the lower arm of his car broke down. Along with Jaidas Menon as co-driver, Karandeep still leads with 34 points, while Gaurav Singh Gill is second with 31 points in their bag. Urs has tied with Naren Kumar for third spot with 29 points and Sidhu is lying in fifth place with 26.

Provisional unaudited results

Overall category: 1. Lohit Urs/ Musa Sherif (Team MRF, Baleno) (2hours, 24min, 27sec); 2. Sunny Sidhu/ Vivek Anandan (Team JK Tyre, Baleno) (2:24.39); 3. Vikram Mathias/ Nikhil Pail (Team JK Tyre, Baleno) (2:24.52); 4. Prithvin Rajan/ PVS Murthy (Team MRF, Baleno) (2:31.14); 5. Sanket Shanbhag/ Ramesh Shanbhag (Gypsy) (2:31.49).

1400cc: 1. Anil Wadia/ Anmol Rampal (Esteem) (2:46.15); 2. Arindam Ghosh/ Sourabh (Esteem) (3:01.28).

Rally Star Cup: 1.  Amanpreet Ahluwalia/ Manoj Shadija (Esteem) (2:33.14); 2. Rajesh Gadakh/ Paritosh Kohok (2:36.56); 3. Nibi Sayed/ Noufel Sayed (2:44.29).

Gypsy Cup: 1. Sanket Shanbhag/ Ramesh Shanbhag (2:31.49); 2. Capt AS Brar/ Capt D Saraswat (2:35.39); 3. Maj Rajesh Powar/ Capt Rohit Nayak (2:37.58).

Note:* Photo updated manually on 5 June 2020, courtesy Musa Sherif archives.