The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : K-1000 Rally from today

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Saturday, Aug 13, 2005

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Sport - Racing : Motor

K-1000 Rally from today

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: The clash of the tyre giants MRF and JK Tyres will once again be the focus of the third leg of the MAI Indian National Rally Championship all set to commence from The Club on Mysore road on Saturday morning. The Rally is also the 31st edition of the K-1000, the oldest rally in the country.

While MRF has gone in for a couple of young drivers (Lohith Urs and Moosa Sherief) along with its seasoned campaigners (Karandeep Singh/Jaidas Menon and Arjun Balu/Kumar Ramaswamy), JK Tyres has roped in former MRF stalwarts Naren Kumar and co-driver Ram Kumar. Vikram Mathias and Sujith Kumar too are now racing for JK Tyres having switched allegiance from MRF Tyres. JK Tyres has also recruited top-tuner Coimbatore's Leelakrishnan while MRF has J. Anand (also from Coimbatore) to prep up its cars.

Though these five drivers should be in the thick of action one cannot rule out blazing performances from Jiby Malaikal, Prithvin Rajan or Philipose Matthai in the A and B classes. In the Rally Star Cup, Sanjay Aggarwal, Rahul Kantharaj and Ravi Aggarwal have the edge over a strong batch of newcomers to rallying. The 24-car line-up is sure to make the rally a keenly contested affair. The rally also has a father/son team (Sanket and Ramesh Shanbag) and a ladies team (Anitha Kholay and Priya).

The K-1000 rally will be flagged off by CEO of Xenolix, Ravi Machani. The rally will head to Maddur district 83km. away on Mysore road and then peel off towards the Special Stages on Malavalli road. The Special Stages will be repeated six times on each of the two days of the weekend and will be run on a dirt track.

The winner's purse is Rs. 30,000 (plus a trophy) and prize money will be paid out till the fourth place. The Rally also witnesses MICO's return to sponsorship of the event after a gap of 12 years.

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