The
second day of Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare 2014 saw participants starting from
Davangere amidst light shimmers of rain and setting off for Chitradurga. Traversing
a total of 475 kms during the day in the Extreme Car category, Team
Maruti’s Sandeep Sharma and Varun
Davessar, in their Maruti Gypsy, clocked 1:02:27 to snatch the lead at the end
of second leg of the rally.
They
surged ahead of defending champion and leader from leg 1, Amanpreet Ahluwalia
who unfortunately slipped to the 8th position after receiving a stop and go
penalty. Team Maruti drivers Sanjay Agarwal and Venu, also driving a Maruti
Gypsy, came in second with a time of 1:03:02. Close at their heels were Karan
AM and Shahid Salman in a Maruti Suzuki Baleno. They were placed third with a
time of 1:03:15.
Nine
time Raid de Himalaya champion Suresh Rana and Parminder Thakur tore across the
track, in their Maruti Gypsy, to better their performance from day one and
finished with a time of 1:03:23, securing the fourth rank. The time difference
between the top 4 contenders came out to be less than a minute.
In
the Extreme Bike category, defending champion of Dakshin Dare 2013 and leader
of Day One, Natraj maintained his lead on day 2 with a time of 45:36. As in day
one, he was followed by Mohit Verma (47:17) and Promod Joshua (48:44) who stood
second and third respectively.
Sandeep
Sharma said that he and his teammate were not expecting the Gypsies to take the
lead in the first two days but now they looked forward to maintaining this
momentum and rank in the coming stages of the rally.
The
second day’s route of the Extreme category was a mix of tarmac and dirt which
allowed the cars to speed in the relatively flat terrain. The Honda City
running on third place yesterday, i.e., Druva and Roopesh crashed out as it
went off the trail in the first stage of day 2.
In the extreme category, traveled via Chitradurga and headed
towards Hospet, which will host the rally for the coming two days.