Siddantha Santhosh (co-driver Prithviraj) and Lokesh Shivaraja (co-driver M. Sujay) planned the stages well and played it safe when it mattered to finish on top after the fourth stage in the JK Tyre Orange 4x4 Fury off-roading event here on Friday.
The stages looked a bit easy at the start from the outside. The drivers had to pass through the river waters and quickly change one rear tyre of either car and come out clean within the stipulated time.
But, the stage titled ‘Parallel Finish’ took a toll on both man and machine. Quite a few struggled to pass the test but not
Pradeep Kumar (co-driver Santhosh) and Vijay Kumar (co-driver Pradeep Gowda) who jumped to the top of the points table, staying calm under pressure to turn the table in their favour.
“Every stage is turning out to be different and difficult. We had to come out with different techniques to tackle them,” said Vijay Kumar.
“We have done quite a few off-roading events such as this before but it was the competition part that has put the teams under pressure. Doing an off-roading event for fun is different from competing seriously for points,” he added.
After seeing through the waters, the drivers had to move on to the ‘Winch it to Reach it’ stage, the trickiest of the stages where the drivers had to climb a stony, narrow and steep uphill track, drive through a tunnel with the winches to back them and then return to climb a pebbled 70-degree pathway.
The first entrants to take the stage struggled so much at the start that small changes were made to make itslightly less tough.
Despite that, Siddhantha and Lokesh managed to complete it, timing 15:53.22s for the top spot.
With the lead changing hands at every stage, the drivers would go all out to take the final day’s honours.
