Mysore : June 15, 2008

Team Red Rooster's two 2000 cc N+ Cedia cars with Vikram Mathias & PVS Murthy and Amittrajit Ghosh & Ashwin Naik behind the wheels finished a commanding 1-2 position at the end of the Sidvin Rally of Karnataka 2008. The former National Champion, the 32 year old Vikram, and Racing and Rallying Champion 22 year old Amittrajit Ghosh, drove the final day with many a problem, but held on to the overnight lead and finished on top. "Just the very first stage of the day was run, we noticed that the fuel railing had come off and the fuel was leaking. It was a bit scary, whether the fuel will hold until two more stages. So we 'crawled' through the second stage and in the third stage tied the rail up and drove hard and finished the first run. Once we sorted out the problem in Service, we were back to our regular place and won the rally with ease", said a beaming Vikram Mathias at the post-event Winners Press Conference. "We are happy that we were able finish 1-2 but, it would have been better if the reds were there, for the competition would have been more", he said. Amittrajit, who is driving a 2000 N+ class for the first time, thanked Vikram, Leelakrishnan, and Naren Kumar for all the training and tips that he received from them. Team owner of Read Rooster Racing, Dinesh Reddy said, "We certainly are happy with the results. It would have been better if we had more competition. Our boys have been training and practicing well and the cars were definitely well prepared". Asked why they are in the sport, Dinesh said, "It is basically the passion. But we are eventually looking at producing a National Champion and give the sport and the drivers in India what they really deserve". The very unfortunate exit of the day was Team Winspeed Sanket & Ramesh Shanbag, who went off the route slid into a canal, hardly 7 kilometers before the finish of the stages. They were running third overall and first in the 1600 cc class.

The Rally Star Cup (RSC) Class, saw Shailendra Hegde & Sheraz Ahmed, finish first and third overall. The duo who came into the lead after a results correction late yesterday night, drove a clean rally to win the RSC Class. "It was J.Anand's suspension that made the difference", said Shailendra, "I have driven the earlier rallys on Konies and have found the suspension not uo to our terrain. The J.Anand suspensions definitely put us ahead of the 1400 cc cars also, and so we were able to finish third overall. J.Anand Suspensions, are suspensions manufactured by ace tuner J.Anand, and named after him. Samarth Vikram Devadasen & Raymond finished second and Byram Godrej & Anjay Kapadia finished third in RSC.

The 1600 cc class had a winner in Arjun Surya & Ravi Venkatesh, who were in their debut rally. "We are obviously thrilled with our win. But we knew that Ramesh & Sanket had a 4 minute lead, and there was no way we could catch him. We just wanted to finish our debut rally and we are happy that we have won it on debut", they said.

The 1400 cc class was won by Samarth.K.V. & Praakhyat Shirole, who also led after the results were finalized late yesterday night. "We had a very clean run. Absolutely no problem with the cars, and enjoyed every moment of it", they said. J.M.Manju & Jeevarathinam finished second, followed by S.Sujay & S.M.Bharath.

The Gypsy class was won by veteran Rally driver Sanjay Agarwal & Shiva Prakash . Consolidating on their overnight lead, the Bangalore duo won the class with élan. "I was driving a gypsy after 13 years, and I enjoyed every bit of the rally. It was simply awesome", said Sanjay, who is known as 'Tiger in rally circles. "I have sat with him both in a 1400 cc car and in a Gypsy now and I think that he is a much better Gypsy driver", opined Shiva, "We expected the North Indian Rally drivers Sandeep Sharma and Suresh Rana and Sunny Sidhu to be here. Then the competition would have been more fun", he commented.

The third and final day of the Sidvin Rally of Karnataka 2008, flagged off at 7 a.m. from the Golden Landmark Resorts today morning, and did the three special stages in the Malavalli area , 50 kms from Mysore, twice in the reverse direction.34 cars started the day and 25 finished the rally in full. Most of the 9 drop outs suffered mechanical problems, except for the Shanbags who went into the canal. The rally ended around 2 p.m. having completed 111 kms of competing Special Stage distance, and 308 kms of traversing Transport distance, to total 419 kms of the Sidvin Rally of Karnataka 2008. This was followed by the Champagne showering ceremony at 3.30 p.m. and the post-event winners Press Conference at 4.15 p.m. A glittering prize distribution function at 7 p.m brought the rally to a close.

The Prosports run event, had Sidvin Core Tech as the title sponsor, Golden Landmark Hotels as the hospitality partner and co-sponsor, SLN Properties and Mitsubishi distributors Hindustan Motors Limited as associate sponsors. Sanjeevini, the NGO, who handles highway accidents with their ambulances, helped out with their trauma ambulances.