Bangalore: National champion Amittrajit Ghosh (co-driver Ashwin Naik), leading by a comfortable 56 points in the Indian National Rally Championship, would be looking to seal the title as the fourth and penultimate round of the series, the IMG 39th Karnataka 1000 gets underway here Saturday.
However, the attention would be also on Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif), fresh from winning the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship and competing in the SUV Class driving a Mahindra XUV 500 for the Mahindra Adventure team, and former APRC champion Karamjit Singh (Jagdev Singh) from Malaysia piloting a factory-prepared Volkswagen Polo R2 that is being tested ahead of its debut next season.
Following a reconnaissance run of the three Special Stages located near Tumkur, about 120km from Bangalore, Friday morning, Ghosh, who will in a Group N-spec Mitsubishi Lancer Cedia sounded upbeat of his chances.
“I liked the Alpha stage and we are expecting the other two stages to become rough for the second run. We will be going all out to clinch the championship here, nevertheless controlled aggression is the mantra,” said Ghosh who won all the previous three rounds in Chennai, Coimbatore and Nashik.
Gill, too, is poised to win the SUV championship as he is on 78 points, well ahead of team-mates Sunny Sidhu (PVS Murthy) who has 36 and Lohitt Urs (Bonnie Thomas), a further two adrift.
“Some 50 per cent of the route is tailor-made for our SUV, but cars will have advantage on the other half. It should be an interesting battle and as always, we will be going flat out,” said Gill as the 37 Rally vehicles took part in a ceremonial flag-off at the Mantri Mall here.
In contrast, the 1600cc class is likely to dish out some exciting competition involving Arjun Rao (66), and Slideways Industries team-mates Sirish Chandran (60) and Byram Godrej (50), all in a Volkswagen Polo cars that like the three Mahindra vehicles were excluded from the Coimbatore Rally results for technical infringements.
Also in with a chance to seal the championship in the Junior INRC class is Asad Khan (Zayne Asrar) who is ahead of the pack with 106 points following wins in Coimbatore and Nashik while Suhem MK (Jagadevan Jeevarathinam) is placed second on 75, just eight ahead of Anirudha Ranganekar (Nitin Jacob) of Slideways Industries.
For the speed buffs, the two entrants in the top-end IRC class, Karamjit, and veteran Narayaswamy Leelakrishnan (Ram Kumar), a last minute entry who will be driving absentee Samir Thapar's Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, should provide plenty of thrills.
The three Special Stages, Alpha (14.5 km), Beta (14.5) and the India Mines (7.32) will be run twice in the same direction on Saturday and once on Sunday. The total distance of the rally is 562.48 km including a liaison section of 453.37 km.
