Rally Chikmagalur: Gill wins, Urs clinches IRC title

The Coffee Day Rally concluded in Chikmagalur on Sunday, bringing an end to the Indian Rally Championship and Asia Cup seasons.

Lohitt Urs and his co-driver Shrikanth Gowda won the Asia Cup rally with relative ease in a privately entered Mitsubishi Evo III, beating Satyan Kochar’s Volkswagen Polo by nearly 20 minutes. Pradeep RG, along with co-driver Shekar completed the podiums positions.

Hitoshi Takayama, along with co-driver Hideki Takeyabu, had already clinched the Asia Cup title in China and decided not to take part in Rally Chikmagalur, along with several other international drivers.

Urs was also crowned the National Rally Champion, despite finishing second to Mahindra’s star driver Gaurav Gill. The Mysorean driver arrived in Chikmagalur with a sizeable lead in the championship, having won the previous two rounds in Coimbatore and Bangalore.

“I am obviously delighted to win the Asia Cup and the National championship. We had some problems with the car early on, but we managed to set things right,” said Urs.

Gill ended an otherwise dismal season on a high by winning the final round of the championship. The New Delhi-based driver took victory in the opening round, before drawing a blank in the following two weekends, where Urs seized advantage with back-to-back wins.

“It has not been the best of seasons for me with so many non-finishes,’’ Gill said. “I am of course disappointed to lose my National title, but feel good to finish the season on a high. We lost some 40 seconds yesterday due to mechanical problems. However, we managed to put it all behind us and win here.”

Meanwhile, Team Yokohama's Rahul Kanthraj completed a clean sweep by winning all four rounds in IRC 2000.

Bangalore’s Kama Kadur brought more delight for Team Yokohama as he made most of misfortunes of other drivers to seal the championship in the IRC 1600 class. Overnight leader Dean Mascarenhas received a one-minute penalty for early check-in at a Time Control while erstwhile championship leader Dr Bikku Babu retired on Saturday, paving way for Kudar’s triumph.

Results

FIA Asia Cup:

1. Lohit Urs / Srikanth Gowda (Pvt, Evo VIII) (2hrs, 14 mins, 11.2 secs)
2. Satyan Kochar / Amit Wagchoure (Pvt. VW Polo) (02:32:13.2)
3. Pradeep RG / Shekar (Pvt, Evo VIII) (02:37:22.5).

IRC Overall:

1. Gaurav Gill / Musa Sherif  (Mahindra Adventure, XUV 500) (02:06:18.6)
2. Lohitt Urs / Srikanth Gowda (Pvt, Evo VIII) (02:06:34.2)
3. Amittrajit Ghosh / Ashwin Naik (Mahindra Adventure, XUV 500) (02:07:08.5).

IRC 2000:

1. Rahul Kantharaj / Vivek Y Bhatt (Team Yokohama, Cedia) (02:11:16.0)
2. Younus Ilyas / Paul Thomas (Pvt, Cedia) (02:12:09.4)
3. Sumit Punjabi / Shahid Salman (Pvt, Cedia) (02:12:44.1)

IRC 1600:

1. Karna Kadur / Vivek Ponnusamy (Team Yokohama, VW Polo) (02:07:29.3)
2. Dean Mascarenhas / Shanmuga SN (Pvt, VW Polo) (02:08.08.5)
3. Bopaiah KM / Karumbaiah KS (Pvt, VW Polo) 3 (02:09:58.6)