Interview with Ashish Gupta
Founder & Director, Cougar Motorsport
Report: P. Tharyan
Can you briefly tell me
about Cougar Motorsport?
We are a five –year-old company. I used to be interested in
motorsports and I used to participate in rallies like the Desert Storm and Raid
the Himalaya in my Gypsy vehicle. I was an investment banker and am a Chartered
Accountant. I used to take time off and participate in rallies. In 2009 a
couple of my friends and peers from the banking community whom I had introduced
to the sport, decided to start Cougar Motorsport, more as a passion and not a
core business. We started Cougar to put together a turnkey premium package for
people to enjoy. One needed not worry about hotel stay, ambulances, mechanics,
insurance etc. We took care of everything. We prepared the car for the complete
scrutiny. We provided the helmets, the
first aid boxes, we got the insurance and the FMSCI licenses done, and then we
would do rallying during the day and luxury stays every night.
Somewhere down the road, when
our events started getting popular we were approached by several automobile
manufacturers to do events for them. They were premium automobile manufacturers
and they realised that the audience we were targeting for our own events were
the same they were targeting. We started working for Audi, for Mitsubishi and
Land Rover. We did a huge exercise consisting of 24 events for Tata Motors in
2012. It was around then when I decided to pursue my passion full time. I quit
my mainstream career and decided to focus full time building Cougar as a
motorsport platform to do our own event as well as to do events for select car
companies. We have done over 50 events in the last five years.
Do you have a big team to
carry out your work?
Since these events are not happening on a daily basis, there may be
two or one a month, you cannot build a large team of full time employees. We
developed a network of people around the country with whom we have signed a
contract to work as consultants. We now have eight to ten consultants with us.
Clients such as Land Rover have spent a considerable amount of time
training us. We have been trained by Land Rover certified instructors from the
UK. I am a certified Land Rover instructor. Two of my members are also
certified Land Rover instructors. Essentially we gain from the best practices
of these automobile manufacturers who have been doing such international events
for years.
I have a core team of five people in my office handling sourcing,
vendor management, accounting etc. In
terms of actual executing there is a pool of people who come together.
When did you think of
bringing the RFC to India?
One aspiration that I have still is to see the top motorsport events
around the world. That is when we
started reaching out to events like the Rain Forest challenge, the Abu Dhabi Challenge
etc. We wrote to RFC Founder Luis J.A. Wee and he told us to come and observe
the race and be an official in their event in Malaysia. I went there along with
a consultant of mine and we were there for two weeks. They gave us very small
responsibilities. But we got to see from close quarters something that was
incredible and crazy. And then I noticed that he had the RFC global series and
they happen in Sri Lanka, Italy, China, Australia and Russia. When I saw Sri
Lanka I had to ask him why not India. He asked me whether India was ready for
it. He asked me whether I would like to do it and I said why not. This was
December 2013. We got into a franchise agreement with them and the rest is what
you see.
An off-roading event like
the RFC is a different ball game compared to so many of the existing rallies in
India. Do you really thing India is ready for this?
First and foremost, I was not sure whether India was ready
vehicle-wise. What I saw in Malaysia was 17 years of hard core experience. They
had gone to a completely different extreme in terms of preparing the
vehicle. The first question that came to
my mind was whether those in India would be able to put together such a vehicle
that would take this kind of punishment.
They had not seen anything like this and the availability of parts was
going to be a major issue. In Malaysia the government allows fairly free import
of parts and cars so one can get a second hand vehicle and cut it up. Another
thing I was worried about was whether they would be intimidated by this
challenge. It’s like this, I am a rallyist but if WRC were to come to India and
announces an India Chapter, and they say it is open to Indians also, this could
give us a wakeup call. Financially I had never seen it as a constraint because
when people come for a Raid, people spend a lot of money.
Did it take a long time
for Cougar to put things in order for the RFS 2014 in India?
We really did not have much time to prepare for this. We signed an
agreement with the organisers of RFC only on February 4, 2014. We had barely
six months to do it. We decided to jump into it and it’s been one crazy journey
till now. The first thing was to decide where to host this event. Everything
had to be looked into...monsoons, connectivity, terrain and we wanted the
government to be supportive. We could have done it in a private estate like
Lavasa or someplace like that. Finally
we decided on Goa. The government and the bureaucrats here have been amazing.
Had it been any other state, this would not have been possible. They had a
clear set of do’s and don’ts. We had to strictly follow that. The Chief
Minister’s office was extremely supportive.
This is a sports tourism event and the state is so pro tourism. Monsoon is a lean period in Goa and they know
if this builds up in the next two to three years, they stand to gain immensely.
It also infuses a lot of dynamism among the youth of Goa. When I got the final
approval for this event, someone remarked that we have finally got something to
Goa which is nothing to do with music or a beach concert. This event would
provide entertainment to people in the hinterland, because no event goes
inside.
In terms of monetary support, the moment I got into a franchise
agreement I was prepared to underwrite that. But then Force Motors came forward
and it was good for everyone and it was also brilliant for them to be part of
this event. They leap frog the 18 years of Mahindra Great Escape in one go.
It’s as big as that. We also liked the idea of Force Motors becoming the title
sponsor and participants too. For Mahindra, it would have been nothing new. It
would be one more additional event in their calendar.
The third challenge has been participation. We started by updating our list on our website on anybody and everybody who stocks 4X4 equipment. We also put up an exhaustive list of FAQs. Then we went around meeting off-roading clubs in India. I went to Bangalore and met the BODA guys over lunch. We met so many people, trying to address their concerns. As a result of all that we had 25 participants for the main event and around 34 for the touring adventurer category. The touring guys bring only stock 4X4 vehicles and participate in the first round and then watch the others in the extreme category. I am sure since this is the first time for the event, they would be motivated to participate in the Extreme category the next year around. People have driven from Hyderabad and Bangalore to participate in the touring adventure category.
My dream is to convert this into an annual 4X4 convention. And on the sidelines of the convention we are doing the RFC. This is a great beginning in this direction.
But RFC has definitely brought in a lot of awareness. People have seen videos and have gone on the net to study what they have done to their vehicles. I have seen radiators pushed to the back of the vehicle, vehicles with hydraulic steering, nobody has heard of a hydraulic vehicle in a 4X4 vehicle. Only when an event of this nature comes, will they grow up to it. If there is no event why will they do this at all? Off road tyre prices have gone through the roof once it was announced that RFC is coming to India. Everyone wants to buy a Simex or a Silverstone or a Maxxis Trepador off road tyre. Winch stocks have run out in the country. There are no 8274 winches available with Warn company in the US. These come from the US and suddenly so many orders coming from India is huge for them.
Look at the impact of this on the economy. Especially for those building a vehicle and you can imagine how many people will come up to them and tell them they want a car like that. Everybody has winches but no one uses a winch dampener blanket. That is a penalty and now everybody has bought it. When a cable breaks, there is a whip lash and if you are standing next to it, it can kill you. This dampener act like a weight and in case of cable break, it simple falls down and wraps around this dampener avoiding any serious injuries to anyone around. This blanket is put on the cable before you begin using it. Also we will not allow them to touch the winch cable without a glove. We are also insisting on four-point harnesses for their seats. We insist on roll cages. People do off-roading in soft top vehicles.
How close is rallying to
off-roading when it comes to rules and regulations?
Rallying has always been a top notch level in India. It is regulated
by the FIA, the FMSCI, etc and we have almost the same safety standards as
international ones. Off-roading has not been regulated by FMCI. In India off
roading is more of a fun event where you go in a soft top vehicle and simply
manoeuvre the uneven terrains. RFC is
now taking the safety levels in off roading to a new level, unheard of or
unseen in India. A rally vehicle is built to go fast. An off-road vehicle does
not go fast, that is why it is higher, has more articulation, heavier tyres,
and has a completely different application. The safety regulations in a rally
are much higher because of the speed element.
IN off roading the worst that can happen to you is you roll over, hence
you need to have a roll cage, helmets and safety belts. In a rally vehicle there is no winch. Nobody
in India has followed the best practices of winching.
What is your view on Force
Motors and their Gurkha product?
After interacting with them for the last six months I realise that
they are a very smart company. They were never convinced of volumes for an
extreme off road vehicle in India. Now when Mahindra is selling around 6000
Thar vehicles a year, they realised that they have a product in their back yard
which can do very well. In terms of
capability, they are giving you a factory fitted snorkel, a factory fitted
differential locks, it’s got a tubular chassis, it has a spring over axle which
in fact people get done after purchasing a vehicle of this kind. It’s got a
hard top and an air conditioning and is priced decently. As for the company, I have seen other rallies
and events of such nature by other companies and I must say one guy from the
company comes to flag it off, but have never seen their R&D head, their MD,
their marketing head all come together on a day like this. In the case of RFC
and Force Motors, Prasan Forodia (MD Force Motors) has been personally involved
in the entire transformation of the Gurkha for the RFC event. That is a very good sign. All automobile
companies get into motorsport just to test and develop a better product.
Unfortunately a Mahindra or a Maruti is just doing the event for PR but not to
improve their product. The Gypsy I used to drive for rallies was highly
modified and lots of things were done to things which we knew would break. But
Maruti till today would not know that these are the things that would break in
their own Gypsy. For Force Motors, I hope the learnings from the RFC are not
taken lightly. Rather they should work on those learnings till the next
challenge comes by. They should
definitely send their Gurkha for the mother event in Malaysia this year. If
they do, what a brilliant exposure will it be for an Indian manufacturer on a
global scale. Force Motors should not lose steam after this RFC in India.
The interview was conducted on the first
day of the RFC 2014
