Major Brar, Moudgil win Raid de Himalaya-2009

Shimla: The 11^th Raid that concluded at Srinagar on Monday had Major AS Brar clocking in with 3 hours, 46 minutes and 57 seconds of penalty time turning up as the winner at one of the toughest cross-country mountain rally in the world.

Captain Nishant Karki with 4.03.44 penalty points was second and Amartej Pal Singh Buwal with 4.06.28 penalty points in a tight finish ended up in third position.

Manali lad and winner of last four Raids’ – Suresh Rana could not make it past Leg 5 and was knocked out of a final position in the rally. Only a dozen 4 wheel vehicles in the X-treme drive ended up at the finish line in Srinagar.

Ashish Saurabh Moudgil, however, was not prepared to give up his last year’s title and again ended up winning the X-reme ride among the motorcyclists. Moudgil was a clear winner with a total of just 2.42.24 penalty points

Gurpinder Sarao with 3.54.06 penalty points finished the Raid in second position and Chandigarh based rallyist Sandeep Singh Matharu with 4.18.55 penalty points ended up in third position.

Just about 8 riders finished the 11^th Raid in the category.

The final leg begun early at Rangum and went around Panikher, through Kargil and ended up at Srinagar.

Of the 17 competitors in the 4 wheel category that were still in the race at the start of Leg 5, five of them; Harpreet Singh Bawa, Mj Shakti Bajaj, Randeep Miglani, Gurdeep Grewal and Suresh Rana could not complete the touch and back route between Rangdum-Padum-Rangdum on Sunday.

Those who finished up at Srinagar were Captain Sameer Pande with 4.32.45 penalty points at 4^th position, Colonel Nidish Bhatnagar at 5^th (4.58.10); Lt Colonel HS Sidhu at 6^th (5.46.05); Harkaran Singh at 7^th (6.04.35); Gurtej Pal Singh Buwal at 8^th (7.34.31); Anil Sharma at 9^th (7.40.31); Shuchi Thakur at 10^th (7.53.20); Mahesh Kumar Abrol at 11^th (10.03.43) and JS Rana at 12^th position.

All the 8 still in motorquads race at the start of Leg 5 on Sunday finished the Raid at Srinagar late on Monday.

Other than the top three, those who completed the rally were Amardev Singh at 4^th position(5.57.37 penalty points), Yogesh Lakhani at 5^th (6.32.44), Simon David Engelbert at 6^th (7.10.32), Karna Verma at 7^th (7.22.07) and Rupinder Singh (with 7.42.05 penalty points) at 8^th position.

In the Adventure Trail it was the team of Prasad and Pradeep in a Mahindra Scorpio with only 8.22 penalty points who ended up winning the rally.

In second position it was the team of Raheja and Raheja with 16:41 penalty points and in third position it was Chanda and Mehta with a total of 22:57 penalty points.

In all 33 team ended up completing the Adventure Trail rally that has caught the fancy of amateur speedsters.

Ravinder Makhaik

As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.

Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.