Vikram Mathias- Murthy win 34th K1000 Rally

By David Bodapati

Bangalore, 10 August 2008: Red Rooster Racing’s Vikram Mathias and co-driver PVS Murthy won the 34th K1000 Rally, the second round of the Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) driving their Mitsubishi Cedia admirably to take their second consecutive win in the season on Sunday.

After winning the opening round, the Rally of Karnataka on the gravel tracks of Mysore, the duo managed to take advantage of issues to Gaurav Gill’s car in Special Stage (SS) 3 and kept up the pressure to take a well-deserved win. They clocked 1 hour, 32 minutes and 21 seconds, a good one minute 29 seconds ahead of second-placed Amittrajit Ghosh and Ashwin Naik. Gill and Musa Sherif, who clocked fastest stage times in all the SS except in SS3 came third, over 8 minutes behind Ghosh.

Reigning National Champion, Gaurav Gill finished way down the order on Day 1 due to mechanical problems in his car causing him a loss of 11 minutes on stage 3. But when all was rectified by his Team MRF, he blitzed up the order from 30th place on Day 1 to 3rd overall by the end of the rally. It must be mentioned that Gaurav was faster than both Vikram and Ghosh on all stages of the rally other than the fateful Stage 3. In the end, it was Vikram Mathias who nurtured his car and Red Roosters snatched the famous victory. “The win would certainly boost the team’s confidence and it would emerge stronger and better for the rest of the rounds of the INRC,” said Vikram Mathias.

Thus Vikram Mathias and Murthy also won the 2000 N+ class. Lohitt V Urs and Arjun Rao Aroor who retired with mechanical problems on Day 1, rejoined the rally but were not eligible for classification.

Sanket Shanbhag with Ramesh Shanbhag calling the pace notes, won the 1600 Class beating Chetan Shivaram and Sangeeth Samuel. Biju Antony and Uday Kumar finished third.

Hyderbad Biker Mazdayar Vatcha and co-driver Vinayaka won the 1400cc class beating Sourabh Chaudhari and Nirav Mehta duro from Calcutta while Krishna Jeet Cola and Abhilash Nair finished third.

The Rally Star Cup was won by Vikram Devadasan and Raymond while Sandeep Sharma and co-driver Rashid Raza lifted the Gypsy Cup.

Out of total entries of 52 only 27 cars finished.

Unaudited Final Classification: Overall: 1. Vikram Mathias/ PVS Murthy (Team Red Rooster Racing) (1hour, 32min, 21sec); 2. Amittrajit Ghosh/ Ashwin Naik  (1hour, 33min,50sec); 3. Gauravsingh Gill/ Moosa Sherif (01:41:07); 4. Mazdayar Vatcha/Vinayaka (01:42:20); 5. Sanket Shanbhag/ Ramesh Shanbhag (01:42:31); 6. S Sujay/ SM Bharath (01:43:10); 7. Akhil Kushlani/ Vivek Ponnuswami    (01:44:12); 8. Vikram Devadasen/ Raymond  (01:45:03).

2000 N+ class: 1. Vikram Mathias/.PVS Murthy (01:32:21); 2. Amittrajit Ghosh/ Ashwin Naik (01:33:50); 3. Gaurav Singh Gill/ Moosa Sherif (01:41:07); 4. Akhil Kushlani/ Vivek Ponnuswami (01:44:12).

1600 N class: 1. Sanket Shanbhag/ Ramesh Shanbhag (01:42:31); 2. Chetan Shivram/ Sangeeth (01:49:14); 3. Biju Antony/ Uday Kumar (01:50:13).

1400cc Class: 1. Mazdayar Vatcha/ Vinayaka (01:42:20); 2. Sourabh Chaudhari/ Nirav Mehta (01:48:56); 3. Krishna Jeet Cola/ Abhilash Nair (01:49:52); 4. Thomas Kurien/ Elias Paarel (01:51:11).

Rally Star Cup: 1. Vikram Devadasen/ Raymond (01:45:03); 2. Deepak Paul/ Chandrashekhar M (01:45:47); 3. Shailendra Hegde/ Sheraz Ahmed (01:46:23); 4) Byram Godrej/ Anjay Kapadia (01:47:55); 5. Den Thimmiah/ Pradeep Kumar (01:48:17).

Gypsy Cup: 1. Sandeep Sharma/ Rashid Raza (01:52:41); 2. Surendra Babu/ Naveen YG (01:56:50); 3. Kamaljit Virdi/ Manoj Talwar (01:59:13).

Editor’s note: This report is manually migrated in 2020, from the old archives, to support INRC winners: Hall of Fame article.