emotnews

All roads led to the Gymkhana Club on Sunday morning as the UCAL Rally for the Blind got underway in Chennai. The enthusiasm and cheerfulness of the visually handicapped touched the hearts of all those who witnessed and participated in the rally. 55 competitors were in the fray which saw leading actress Ms. Sonia Agarwal gracing the occasion and flag off the first few cars. Mr. K.Jayakar, Managing Director, Ucal Fuel Systems gave away the prizes.

This Time Speed and Distance (TSD) format based event helped visually handicapped persons enjoy the thrills of a motorsports event giving them a feeling of belonging to the mainstream of life. The instructions to the visually handicapped navigator were in Braille. The rally was run in and around Chennai city and its suburbs covering a distance of 67.1 kms in approximately 3 hours.

The driver – navigator team of Sonia Muglani and Rajarathinam were the victors in the experts category with a tally of 7 penalty points. V. Nandagopal and his navigator R. Pandiyan emerged victors in the regular category while the top spot in the novice category went to the combination of Rajesh and Ponnuswami. Taking the honors in the all ladies category was the team of Anitha Srinath and C.Manjula.