RFC India 2018: Jagat and Chethan continue to lead on day 5
The fifth day of the RFC India 2018 entered Quepem in Goa where four stages were held. Jagat Nanjappa and Chethan Chengappa from V5 Offroaders dominated the day, with 1614 points to their name. Gurmeet and Kirpal from Gerrari Offroaders are in second place with 1490 points, followed by Mervyn and Alex from G.O.A Fairmont.
The toughest stage till date was SS20 from day 5 which was – simply put – designed to break vehicles. It was basically a boulder track, with a sharp drop and a tight roundabout which lead to a stone wall, after which the vehicles had to tackle the boulder path once again back to the finish box. Most of the teams did not finish the stage due to breakdowns.
SS21 involved driving into a stream from the start point at the top. The way down the stream was slushy and rocky. The participants entered the stream to take a right turn, with some rocky obstacles. The participants had to then winch out of a big boulder. Then, they had to take a left and descend again into the stream and take the same route back to the finish box. Gurmeet and Kirpal managed to finish this stage quickly. The other teams spent too much time winching out and struggled. The position of the vehicle and the winching point played a key role in deciding the outcome of the stage.
SS18 started out at the bottom of a small hill. This stage damaged the winch of as any as 10 vehicles. Participants had to scale the path with loose sand and little stones. Once at the top, they had to tackle another Boulder wall which had two gates – one to scale it and the other to descend. While going up was easy, the rule here was participants had to use the winch while descending. This is also the part where many participants tried reverse winching due to the narrow track and at least ten broke their winch rope. Team KASC didn’t suffer the same fate as some of their participants and completed the stage successfully.
SS19 was relatively easy. This stage had a high-speed run (comparatively) straight into a deep ditch with a stone wall at the other end. Once they winched out of it, they took a roundabout and entered into a box where they had to remove the jack, lift the vehicle up by one inch, remove the spare wheel, roll it around the vehicle and fix it back. Then they had to remove the jack and put it in position. The competitors had to then go flat out into the finish box.
Stages 22 – 25 are happening today and stage 26 will be the final stage which will take place tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates.
