Attending a navigator's workshop in Bangalore got Satish Gopalakrishnan and his wife Savera D'Souza hooked to rallying.
Now, just a year after their take-off in motor sports, the two are a winning pair.
Satish and Savera won the Endurance section of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare recently and the spotlight in the Mahindra Spice Escape, which begins at the Holiday Inn here on Saturday morning, will be on the Bangalore couple.
“We've done about 10 rallies this year. We keep learning about the tricks and the traps with every rally,” said Satish who runs a software company, Authorator, in Bangalore.
The triumph in the Dakshin Dare, a five-day TSD challenge which ran through Chennai and Bangalore, is one of the couple's best victories.
“But every event is unique in its own way, every terrain is different,” said the 36-year-old Satish who did his schooling at Chinmaya in Kochi and then went to the IIT in Chennai.
As Satish spoke, Savera was pasting the competition stickers on to the jeep which will take them through the long and winding roads of Munnar in the TSD event, where a steady, calculated run matters more than speed.
So, how is the world of navigating for Savera?
Tough world
“It's a tough world, a lot of minute calculations, technical things,” said Savera.
Navigating involves a lot of shouting and screaming as one reads the notes and shouts out instructions to the driver. So, does it give the pair an advantage, being married and with the understanding between the two probably better?
“But for the others, they go their own way after the event, we carry it home too,” said Savera with a smile.
Sure, this couple's run will be an interesting act to follow.
