Shimla: With the Raid de Himalaya spending the day out negotiating the Spiti valley loops today, by end of Leg 3 on Tuesday, Ashish Moudgil among the bikers and Suresh Rana in the four wheel X-treme category had consolidated their leads in the categories.
While Moudgil, the Kalka based motoquad racer, had moved into top rank among the bikers, in second place was Ranjan Sandhu (Ludhiana), followed by Gurinder Rahal (Canada), Stefan Rosner (Team Austria), Vijay Bhatti (Delhi) and Klaudia Honeder (Team Austria).
With 5 time winner of the off road rally Suresh Rana in the lead yet again, the Kullu lad was being closely chased by Cpt. Sameer Pande of the Team Army. At number three was Ranadeep Miglani (Delhi), who was followed by Harpreet Bawa (Chandigarh), Gurdeep Garewal (Chandigarh), Karan Jung (Uttrakhand), Amartejpal Singh Buwal (Delhi), Sqd Ldr Ashish Kumar (Air Force Team) and Vikrant Bhandari (Dehradun).
After completion of the days racing, the Raid has another two legs to go with the rallyists moving out of Spiti valley into Lahaul on Thursday and going all the way to Patseo.
After the last competitive stages are done on Friday, the survivors in the Raid have a long transport section drive back to Manali, where the winners will uncork the bubbly on Saturday.
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.
