Harith Noah gets a stunning start to complete Stage 1 in 31st place; Santosh 42nd

By David Bodapati

Jeddah, 3 Jan 2021: Sporting golden hairlocks with blazing red boots, the number #33 Harith Noah Koitha Veettil, who is a product of TVS Racing, turned out to be the Golden boy for India topping his other two compatriots with a very creditable 31st place after the Stage 1 in the Dakar Rally 2021. The Dakar Rally is running in Saudi Arabia for the second year, after shifting from its original terrain in 2020, before the pandemic.

Meanshile, CS Santosh finished the first stage in 42nd and the Dakar this year has 12 stages which will end on Jan 15. CS Santosh, #50, finished in 42nd place while the third Indian in Dakar-21, Ashish Raorane, finished the 623-km stage in 84th place in 6 hours, 8 minutes and 27 seconds. Astride a KTM450RR, Raorane is taking part in G2.2 marathon class.

The German-born Malayalee, Noah clocked 3 hours, 54 minutes and 19 seconds, astride a Sherco Factory bike. He is supported by TVS Racing, who did not field a team due to the pandemic. He entered as Privateer and is supported by Sherco. The number33, Noah is born in Germany and trained abroad for over two months as preparation. Clocking 35.43 behind the top bike of Toby Price. The TVS Racing’s rider is astride a 450RTR tuned by Sherco TVS Rally Factory team is in the G2.1 Super Production Class and supported by his sponsors Scott India and Camelbak India. In the pre-event run, Noah was placed 43rd position on Saturday and did a brilliant job on Sunday to move up to 31st place.

Meanwhile, CS Santosh had to reign in his natural instincts on Sunday and focus more on navigating in what was a difficult, rocky Stage 1 of in his 7th Dakar, Santosh Chunchunguppe Shivashankar, finished the stage in the 42nd position, in 4 hours 8 minutes and and 21 seconds and is 49 min and 55 seconds variation from the first placed Toby Price, who clocked 3:18:26. The Kannadiga is supported by Red Bull, Hero, Sidvin, Genetic Nutrition, Scott, Big Rock dirt park, Dos moto design.Taking part in the G2.1 Super Production Class in his custom-made 450 rally factory tuned and supported Hero bike began with a bang to be in the top bikes and placed at 35 in the scratch time on Saturday and retained it in the Stage and General standings at the end of Day 1 and in the competitive Stage 1 on Sunday, he did extremely well in the navigation, for which he did much preparation, and was placed at 42nd position in the final end of the stage tally. Initially, it was shown as 43rd but it is now officially declared as 42nd place in the standings. Since this is the first stage both the Overall ranking after the end of the stage and the Stage ranking are same at 42nd place.

The Bangalore based rider, considered as the best endurance raid biker in India, made a successful debut in 2015 finishing 36th and went on to improve it to 34th four years later in 2018. He was forced to quit in Stage 4 in 2016, in Stage 5 in 2019 and the last year, it was a team decision to pull out due to the death of teammate Paulo Gonsalves. Thus making the only Indian to complete three Dakar in 6 attempts, a great achievement considering the difficulty of the world’s toughest event.

Mumbai’s Ashish Raorane, fell short on Day 1 astride a KTM 450RR tuned by BigRock of Spain, and assisted by Motul, finishing the first stage in 84th place slipped to general ranking of 85. Thanks to his sponsors Klim, Slipstream Performance, Dosmoto, Leatt, EBC Brakes, Gaerne, Hellraiser motorwear and Goodwill Enterprises, the Indian managed to enter the Dakar without the support of a Factory team. On first day, he wonted help.