Satish and Savera emerge champs in TSD Rally

Bangalore, Aug 20 – Underling their status as one of the country’s top pairs, the husband-wife duo of Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D’Souza from Bangalore annexed the overall and Pro-Expert class titles in the Rally of Bangalore, the first round of the Indian National TSD Rally Championship here.

Gopalkrishnan and navigator Savera in a Maruti Grand Vitara, had a penalty time of just 52 seconds Sunday as they notched their fourth podium finish in five major National TSD rallies this year.

In second place were Erode’s KP. Karthick Maruti and Sankar Anand in a Maruti Esteem, a mere 10 seconds behind the leaders while Jagmeet Gill and Yogesh Gupta from Chandigarh (Volkswagen Vento) were third in the rally promoted by Berunda Adventure Sports Club here Sunday.

The pair of Chidananda Murthy and BS. Sujith Kumar in a brand new Tata Indica Vista, topped the Pro-Stock class with a penalty time of three minutes, 15 seconds, ahead of fellow-Bangaloreans Ramprashath and C. Sakthivel (3:32) in a Honda City while Erode’s S. Senthil Kumar and P. Velusamy (4:45) in a Peugeot completed the podium.

Teams from Erode dominated the Novice class as B. Manikandan and A. Parthipan in a Mahindra Scorpio topped with a penalty of six minutes, 29 seconds followed by Baskaran G and P. Ganesan (Maruti Esteem) while T. Sujith and Shahid Salman from Bangalore came in third in a Fiat Punto.

Commenting on their performance, Gopalkrishnan attributed the victory to team effort between him and his navigator-wife Savera and that the competition was very stiff with even a minor error making a difference between winning and finishing second best.

Navigator Sujith Kumar was quite ecstatic after clinching the Pro-Stock title with Murthy as the pair had missed out on the top place in a few earlier attempts, but this time, they kept it simple by doing away with trip meters and other paraphernalia while putting their faith in the calculator.

The announcement of results was delayed considerably due to errors in tabulation that was based on a hitherto untested software and application.

In all, 54 vehicles took the starter’s flag at the Golden Gate Properties in the morning after traversing through the back roads of Magadi, Ramanagar, Bidadi, Kanakapura and Bannerghatta, returned to Bangalore in the evening.

Final classification:

Overall / Pro-Expert: Satish Gopalkrishnan / Savera D’Souza (Bangalore, Maruti Grand Vitara) 1 (0:00:52secs); KP Karthick Maruthi / Sankar Anand (Erode, Maruti Esteem) 2 (0:01min, 02secs); Jagmeet Gill / Yogesh Gupta (Chandigarh, VW Vento) 3 (0:01:17).

Pro-Stock: Chidananda Murthy / BS Sujith Kumar 1 (Bangalore, TATA Indica Vista) 1 (0:03:15); Ramprashath / C Sakthivel (Bangalore, Honda City) 2 (0:03:32); S Senthil Kumar / P Velusamy (Erode, Peugeot) 2 (0:04:45) 3.

Novice: B Manikandan / A Parthipan (Erode, Mahindra Scorpio) 1 (0:06:29); Baskaran G / P Ganesan (Erode, Maruti Esteem) 2 (0:07:07); T Sujith / Shahid Salman (Bangalore, Fiat Punto) 3 (0:07:53).

All Ladies: Deepali Poddar / Ipsita Das (Kolkata, Maruti Alto) 1 (0:04.58).