Kaza: Suresh Rana holds the lead, although by a very small margin, on the third day of the highest motor sporting event of India, Raid De Himalaya. In the motorcycle X-treme category, last year’s winner Helmut Frauwallner, the Austrian biker, has slipped to the second position. C.S Santosh, riding on his Honda CRF is holding the first position at the end of the third day.
The day’s competition started in Kaza and ended in Kaza itself after navigating through the beautiful Pin Valley.
Rana with navigator Thakur, in a Maruti Grand Vitara had accumulated 5 hours, 14 minutes and 45 seconds (5.14.45) as penalty time and on his tail were Mishra with navigator Halder in a Maruti Gypsy with 5.17.20 of penalty time on their scorecard. Ahluwalia and Mansukhani, who finished second yesterday slipped to third position with only marginal time difference of 21 seconds. They clocked 5:17:41 of penalty time on their scorecard.
The top three were closely followed by Bawa/Kashyap and Pande/Matharu, both teams running in a Maruti Gypsy.
In the motorcycle category, last year’s winner Helmut is fighting neck to neck with Indian rider C.S Santosh, who has taken a substantial lead at the end of the third day. Santosh accumulated a penalty time of 4:49:27, whereas Helmut accumulated 4:54:30, who is riding a Yamaha WRF 50. Raj Singh Rathore and Jes David are holding the third and fourth position respectively at the end of the third day.
In the Adventure Trail category with Mysore rallyist K Prasad in the driving seat and Chandrashekha navigating the Maruti Grand Vitara are wedged to their first position.
With a penalty time of 1.53, Prasad- Chandrashekha team were top in Adventure Trail category followed by the Pune speedster Sanjay Takale and Musthafa in a Tata Safari and a time of 2:00 in second position.
A Civil Engineering graduate from NIT Hamirpur, Tarun has worked in the hydro power and IT sectors in the past. He loves writing and sharing the positive stories floating around in the society, which usually go unnoticed.
For over 2 years, Tarun wandered around the passes, mountain peaks, dangerous roads, and remote villages in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh on his motorcycle.
