He was the oldest and had the least fancied of the vehicles, but Coorg’s Jagat Nanjappa showed his young rivals that it was skill, experience and guts which mattered.
The veteran rallyist, with co-driver Chetan Changappa, representing V5 Offroaders won the gruelling fifth edition of the Isuzu RCF 2018 off road rally here on Saturday.
Jagat, who had a lead of nearly 200 points over his next rival at the start of the final day, ensured the title with a show of consistency in the five stages held on the final day.
Jagat scored 95 points in the boulder strewn 25th stage and finished with 2006 out of 2600 points to finish first.
Jagat will represent India in the RCF mother event to be held in Malaysia in November.
“This year’s stages were tougher than last year. The first stage was the toughest. My jeep is basic and along with my co-driver proved that we could beat others with basic equipment. Am looking forward to taking part in the RCF mother event,” said Jagat.
Malaysian driver Mervyn Lim (co-driver Alex Tan) of GOA Fairmont displaced defending champion Gurmeet Virdi (co-driver Kirpal Singh Tung) from the second spot. Mervyn scored a perfect 100 in the 22nd and 23rd stages to end up with 1849 points.
Gurmeet, representing Gerrari Offroaders, paid the price for a poor show in the 23rd stage in which he could only get 10 points and finished third with 1800.
