Varca (South Goa): This small town known for its picturesque countryside in South Goa today hosted the 38 rugged drivers and their mean machines from the stables of auto major Mahindra and Mahindra who participated in the ‘Mahindra Monsoon Challenge 2018. The rallyists were flagged off on Friday from Mangaluru. After covering several rain battered parts of Karnataka close to 600 kilometres they arrived in good spirits to the culmination point at Varca.
The drivers who held the pole position on Saturday night when they reached Murdeshwar, Takale Sanjay and his co-driver Mohammad Mustafa, K P Karthick Maruthi and C Shaktivel and Ravindra Kumar BV and Sagar M emerged overall winners of the Monsoon Challenge 2018. They were announced overall victorious at a glittering ceremony at a resort in Varca.
Apart from the overall championship, Mahindra’s adventure initiative had created different categories that include Corporate, Ladies, couple, doctor and novice sections. In class 2 category N Maheshwarn and N Murgan topped the chart. In Corporate section Arvind Ganeriwala and Arjun SSB, in couples section, Deepika Bhaduri and Aman Gulfam, Doctors section Dr. Ganesh MK and Dr.Vikram Jain and in ladies category Shivani Pruthvi and Deepti Pruthvi, topped the list. Akshay Jain and Akhil Nayak topped in the local category and in Novice section Koushik K S and Sachin RK topped the chart.
The Mahindra Monsoon Challenge is the first rally in the country held during the peak of monsoon and is fast gaining the attention of the International drivers. Launched by the Mahindra’s adventure initiative eight years ago has become benchmarks of sorts in the world of motorsports. Indian Motor Sports Club, Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI) and Mahindra Adventure initiative have together given this event an international dimension of rally rules and standards. According to Bijoy Y Kumar chief of the Mahindra Adventure Initiative, there has been an improvement of rallying spirits among the participants in every edition of Mahindra Monsoon Challenge and the event was getting bigger and better.
Ashwin Naik ace international rallyist and Musa Sherief president of the FMSCI said the monsoons put the drivers and their co-drivers to the ultimate test against the natural forces mainly the pouring rains and misty conditions. They appreciated the ruggedness of Mahindra vehicles that took the punishment of the driving condition in monsoons battered roads and the special night driving segment which has been introduced especially this year.
