Gaurav Gill: Queensland da Puttar

“Have you seen a car fly?”

I looked on questioningly to what Tony Allen, our media guide had just said. “Yeah, in Back to the Future,” I muttered. The frail but boisterous blue-eyed Aussie let out a hearty laugh, paced up towards me and quipped, “Wait till you see Gill on the Big Derrier.”

For the next 10 minutes, I wondered whether it was a racist taunt or whether it was some lazy-ass Aussie joke that I just couldn’t figure out. It was only when I saw the tally-sheet that I kicked myself – this derriere was without an ‘e’. Dirty Indian mind.

I was in the Imbil Forests in Mary Land Valley. Before ‘Imbil’ makes you chortle that I must be running around rubber trees in Muvattupuzha, I was not. I was at Sunshine Coast, 100 kms off Brisbane in the north-eastern part of India’s distant, but most ‘loved’ neighbour, Australia.

Close to 9000 kilometres away from the noisy innards of Bangalore, I was in this quiet town covering a sport that appeals to a privileged few and takes daredevil driving to a whole new level – rally racing.

Often occupying maybe a single column or at the max, three-columns of precious space on sports pages in newspapers, rally racing has struggled to gain visibility in India and is often outshined by its country cousin – Formula One. Though, that’s not the case in several European countries where the sport is a big rage.

The rally is called the Asia-Pacific Rally Championships or the APRC – a grueling six-stage event held in Malaysia, Australia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Japan and China. And the Gill here in reckoning is India’s one-and-only representation at the Asia-Pacific level – Gaurav Gill. The Punjab-cum-Delhi da puttar was picked up by MRF after his big win at the 2007 INRC and went on to outrun an Aussie team on their own mitti to win the 2010 Queensland Rally. And, now he was back, looking for an encore.

With a Nikon and a refreshing ginger-beer bottle in hand, I trudged along with Tony into the Big Derrier – the 34.2 km-long stage, the longest of the 18 stages of the leg. We were headed to a spot on the run called the ‘water jump’, a putrid, loathsome-looking pool of slush in the middle of a descending, long dirt track.

As we waited on the edges of the road near the jump, we spotted a bunch of Aussies making their way towards us, beer-pack in hand, perhaps in hunt for a better vantage point. “You guys here for Gill eh mate?”asked one of the six-footers, noticing my Indian ethnicity. I nodded and flashed a thumbs-up sign to which the other guy with the bulging biceps retorted, “He’s our favourite too mate. Walloped our boys last year and looks menacing as ever this time too. Drives like a devil… the lad’s got it in him I tell you.” Earlier too at another stage, I saw a group of locals wolfwhistling and cheering Gill as he thundered past them.“Seriously, Gill an Aussie favourite?” I wondered. I literally ate my words in the following minutes.

Soon, the safety cars and stage leaders Proton Motorsports rolled along, all gently skimming the side of the slushpot and driving away, much to our disappointment. See the slushpot, though figuratively small, can be very intimidating. No one knows how deep it is and whether it has rocks or gravel at its bottom. So obviously, we all expected drivers to take the easy, slow way out of this race-threatening obstacle. Ha, but not Gill.

A distant rumble echoed around the woods. “That’s him, That’s bloody Gill!” the Aussies roared, jumping out of their bored selfs and getting their cameras ready in anticipation. The raspy grunting, heavy shifting of gears grew louder as we waited motionless to capture Gill in his element. And what a sight it was.

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X hit the curve at breakneck speed and hurtled headlong towards its nemesis. The gargantuan load of torque and the insanely free-flowing exhaust made the fiery red beast bellow in anger as Gill cudgeled into the slush-hole in a perfect Scandinavian flick – a move in which the driver points the car in the wrong direction, then swings it back around to make the turn.

And then – yes – he flew. The Evo emerged from the slush, tiny rocks and gravel flying off its heavily spinning mud-ridden tyres and went airborne for a few feet. We had no time to recover, no one was expecting this, except for the Aussies. Gill was down and gone in less than three seconds, but the ‘dudes’ were jumping up and down and shrieking, like teenage girls who had won backstage passes to a Boyzone concert. “Did you see that, did you f***ing see that!,” they yelled.“That’s our boy Gill. That’s super-f***ing Gill,” they bawled, mud-splattered and happy. “Awesome”, I muttered to myself as a sense of national pride engulfed me.

Gill finished second by a whisker after a surprising change of tyres by Soueast Motor Kumho Team’s Mark Higgins and Ieuhan Thomas in the final stages helped the British pair win the leg. But the MRF driver had the last laugh, leading the overall driver championship points.

“So what was going through your mind on the podium,” I asked Gill after the presentation ceremony. “The National anthem. I remember last year when I stood there and saw everyone, including the locals, stand in respect for me and my country. I so badly wanted an encore. Maybe next year for sure. Queensland is my baby, the adrenaline rush on these roads is just too wicked to explain,” he winked, as rode out under a setting Caloundra sun to a night of celebrations. Take a bow, Australia da Punjab Express.