Ask any rally driver in the country about their favourite rally and they’ll all say it is the Nashik rally. Why?
Well for starters the route is basically a noodle-ly road through the mountains on the outskirts of the temple city. It is usually wet, involves some ultra-technical driving and spectators get a chance to see things like a two-ton SUV five feet in the air over a crest. The Goa rally got cancelled early last month, which meant that the 2015 season’s kick off round was moved to Nashik.
Luckily, the WISA Rally of Maharashtra didn’t disappoint. The rally was run with a spectator special stage at the end of every day’s special stages. We keep talking about increasing the engagement in the sport, this is definitely a start.
The rally itself saw a tooth and nail fight between the three Mahindra Adventure drivers – Gaurav Gill, AmittrajitGhosh and Sunny Siddhu – and ArjunRaoAroor in his R2 spec VW Polo. Gill, as usual, was a class apart taking the top spot on Friday and holding onto the lead till the last spectator special on sunday finishing the rally with a four minute lead over ArjunRaoAroor in his R2 spec Polo. ArjunRao had to put in a fight for second, besting Ghosh by just one second on the last SSS. Meanwhile, further down the order, Team Yokohama’s Rahul Kanthraj and his co-driver of 15 seasons, Vivek Bhatt, driving a Mitsubishi Cedia comfortably won the IRC 2000cc class where he faced little or no competition.
Dean Mascerenhas who always had pace but no consistency started the season with an outright win in the 1600cc category.