Day
One of the 2000 km Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare rally saw rallyists start from
Bangalore before the crack of dawn for two super stages, named the Windmill
leg. They traversed a total of 400 kms during the day in the Extreme 4 Wheel
category. At the end of the day last year Dakshin Dare winner, Amanpreet
Ahluwalia along with his team mate Sudeep in his Maruti Gypsy led the pack
clocking 30:35 in the first leg of this annual event.
In
second place, Team Maruti duo Sandeep Sharma and Varun Davessar driving a
Maruti Gypsy clocked 30:42. Druva and Roopesh (31:03) grabbed the third
position. Suresh Rana driving a Maruti Gypsy from Team Maruti took the sixth
spot (31:42).
In
the Extreme Bike category, defending champion of Dakshin Dare 2013, Natraj
maintained his lead on day one. Mohit Verma (32:18) and Promod Joshua (32:22) stood
second and third respectively.
Amanpreet
Ahluwalia said that on Day One he and his teammate made their way through a
track which was a mix and match of fast flowing corners and several dips and
ruts. He noted that the competition gets tougher every year as the bar in this
motorsport is raised higher and higher.
In
the extreme category, vehicles covered a liaison distance of 250 kms North West
of Bangalore to reach the region of Chithradurga. The Endurance category
vehicles traversed 331 kms from Bangalore to Mysore via Tumkur and Nagamangala.
The day witnessed a competition between top rally teams Satish
Gopalakrishnan-Savera D’Souza, Karthik Maruti-Shankar Anand and Jagmeet
Gill-Mustafa. As per latest results, Karthik Maruti-Shankar Anand of Team
Maruti were leading on day one.
On
day 2, the extreme category vehicles will move about 338 kms towards the town
of Hospet on the banks of Tungabhadra river by end of the day.