By IANS,
Mysore : Red Rooster Racing headed for a 1-2 finish in the Sidvin-Motorsport Association of India (MAI) Rally of Mysore, the first round of the Indian National Rally Championship (INRC), after the conclusion of the first leg here Saturday.
Topping the time sheet was Vikram Mathias (co-driver P.V.S. Murthy), enjoying a lead of one minute, 57 seconds over team-mate Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik), both driving Mitsubishi Cedia (N+).
With just six more special stages running, the Red Rooster drivers were keen on putting in precious miles in their cars and test the vehicles in rally conditions rather than pushing each other.
Unfortunately, the flavour of competition was missing in the three-car N+ class field with the retirement of local hero Lohit Urs (Chandramouli) driving a Maruti Baleno after just two stages due to a wrecked gearbox. But he said he would start Leg 2 on Sunday under the Super Rally format.
Another top contender to retire was Girijashankar Joshy (G.M. Srikanth) of Team Winspeed competing in the 1600cc class with his Baleno suffering mechanical glitches.
It left the father-son duo of Sanket and Ramesh Shanbhag of Team Winspeed heading the 1600cc class and overall third behind Mathias and Ghosh.
Meanwhile, competition in the Rally Star Cup (Maruti Esteem) hotted up with 21-year old Deepak Paul Chinnappa (Srikarunya) heading the field, just four seconds ahead of Vikram Devadasen (Raymond D’Souza) while former 1400cc champion Sanjay Agarwal (Shiva Prakash) led in the Gypsy class.
The story of the day was Ghosh whose performance was under close scrutiny as he had graduated from 1400cc to the N+ class having joined the Red Rooster Racing team. The 22-year-old from Kolkata underlined his talent and potential by matching the more experienced Mathias in the day’s first two stages before encountering a puncture and then getting stuck behind a tractor that cost him a total of over a minute.
Chinnappa, the 21-year old from Bangalore, was another youngster who impressed Saturday. Since he had done a reccee of the stages, he took it easy on the first run of the three stages, but then began to make time on himself the second time around.
The day’s programme of six Special Stages went without a hitch, notwithstanding some unscheduled traffic on the route. Mathias survived a close call when he came through a fast corner to find a two-wheeler with three persons on board, in the middle of the road.