Kottayam, Dec 16 (IANS) After the disastrous Karnataka-1000 a fortnight back, the Speed-Indian National Rally Championship caravan has arrived in the much calmer and scenic Kuttikkanam for the all-tarmac Misty Meadows Rally.
The rally is the fifth round of the series that is expected to witness another battle between Team MRF and Red Rooster Racing.
While MRF delivered a 1-2 finish in K-1000 that saw some 20 cars pulling out after their demand for cancellation of one of the Special Stages on safety grounds was rejected, Red Rooster suffered setbacks, but yet head the leaderboard.
The three-day event commences at the Marian College Friday with seven times national champion Naren Kumar (co-driver D. Ramkumar) of Red Rooster, with victories in two of the four rounds, seeking to consolidate his position at the top and adding to his current tally of 30 points.
With only one more round remaining, the Misty Meadows Rally assumes significance, especially for MRF’s chances as Naren Kumar’s team-mate, Vikram Mathias (co-driver PVS Murthy) occupies the second spot with 26 points, one ahead of K-1000 winner Arjun Rao Aroor (Satish Rajagopal) of MRF.
Reigning champion Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif), also of MRF, is on 16 as his 2010 campaign that began with a victory in the opening round at Nashik, has since been plagued by retirements, but it is still within his reach to kick-start his challenge.
Both MRF and Red Rooster teams are in the high-end 2000cc Group N+ class driving the Mitsubishi Lancer Cedia.
The penultimate round of the Championship is being organised by Pas-Sear Adventures with Bharat Petroleum as the principal sponsors and is promoted by IMG Sports and Pro-Sports Promotion (PSP).
Some of the prominent drivers from Kerala include the former 1400cc champion Dr Bikku Babu from Thiruvalla, Bonnie Thomas from Thodupuzha, both in 1400cc class, former rallyist Thomas Elias’ son Elias Thomas in a Gypsy, local crowd puller Noufal Sayed of Kottayam, Renjith Gopinath of Kochi and Anish P Nath, also from Kochi.
The total distance is 449.61 km, including a transport section of 339.31 km. The distance of Special Stage rallying will be 110.30 km.
The rally has three Special Stages, namely, Hill View (8.6 km), Meadows (5.6 km) and Curling Heights (14 km) which will be run three times Friday and Saturday with the second run in the reverse direction. The Super Special Stage will be held Sunday at 12 noon.
