Calcutta, April 4 :
Defending EMSA Wild Run champion, Hari Singh of team JK, kept his title this year too, with the bonus of having won the first of the nine-leg FMSCI National Rally Circuit. That gives him 10 points.
In the two-day rally which ended yesterday, Singh and navigator Gurinder Singh Mann, collected penalties of 1 hour 44 minutes and 17 seconds to finish ahead of the 13 cars that managed to complete the Calcutta-Durgapur route.
Following him in order of merit was V. R. Narenkumar and D. Ram Kumar of MRF Motorsport with penalties of 1::48:00. Nikhil Taneja and Musa Sharif Perwac, also of JK team, finished third, but best among non-modified cars, with penalties of 1::48:54.
They were followed by two Chettinad Sporting cars ?Abhilas P. G. and Jeff G. Poothokkaran (1::51:00) who finished fourth while fifth were the only ladies? team in the rally, comprising Navaz Bathena and Sherin Balachandran (1::62:27).
The team of Abhijoy Mitra and Dipankar Dutta (2::01:55) finished first among the city entrants, but veteran rallyist Mitil Chakraborty and Bhabesh Dhabaria were way down at 11th position (2::18:10). Mitra?s was a private entry, while Chakraborty?s was only part supported by JK.
Among the 13 finishers, there were three JK cars (Deborshi Sadhan Bose and Sandeep Lal finishing tenth at 2::13:49 in non-modified car), just one MRF, both the Chettinad Sporting entrants, one private with JK support, and six private entries. That itself goes to show how much more talent is available away from the total organisation of the big teams.
Also, while almost the entire starting field (of 22 cars) comprised Maruti Esteems, Ashis Bagchi and Satya Sundar Dutta (2::19:29) managed a 12th spot in their old, dependable Gypsy, though modified.
OTHER RESULTS
7th: Sanjoy Arya & Yogesh Gupta (A, 2::02:58); 8th: Sanjeev Bhojnagarwala & Somdeb Chanda (N, 2::04:04); Rajiv Ranjan Roy & Sushanto Goswami (N, 2::11:04); 13th: JK Jaiswal & Basudeb Ghosh (A, 2::21:45).