Proving his mettle against the mighty mountains, Manali lad Suresh Rana raced to victory for the consecutive fifth time as he emerged winner of the tenth Raid de Himalaya Xtreme 4 wheelers while Ashish Moudhgil who was trailing back at number two position in the Xtreme 2 Wheelers category sped off to regain his number one position for the third time.
Sanket Shanbagh managed the number two position while Harprit Singh Bawa, Capt. Amarinder S Brar and Anil Wadia maintained their positions at third, fourth and fifth respectively. In the Xtreme 2 wheeler category Ashish was followed by Sandeep S. Matharu. While Prashant Kumar, Yogesh Lakhani and Karanbir Singh Bedi sped off to number three, four and five positions respectively. Klaudia Honeder managed to finish at sixth position.
In the adventure trail, K.Prasad leads the group followed by Ajay Singh, Rajesh Chalana, J.S. Rana, and Manoj Vaidya respectively. Raid has halted at Panzi La for the day and would see prize distribution tomorrow.
Congratulations to Mr Rana and Modgil.
Congrats to the winners.
@Neha : Could you please post the final positions of all the participants.
Same winners every year, where”s the competition
@ Amit…
Well, you can see a list of them all at Raid de Himalayas. OR I would try and manage all of them in the comment section…
@ Aman…
Same winners don’t imply a lesser competition but their strong wills.
Well Neha, the results have been all proved wrong, the Raid organisers changed the results on the last day to suit certain individuals..and totally screw up the results of some others! The results that had been posted earlier as final official results have been changed…it is surprising that they haven’t informed your site about it!!!! …considering that you were associated with the Raid officially!!!! Sanket Shanbagh had now been dropped to 5th from 2nd, without any fault of his… all the timings posted and informed to the competitors..and to your site…every day of the event were WRONG…a shame for motor sports in this country….
Neha … the final results of the 2W categry also do not match what you have posted above. the raid website gives the result as 1st Ashish Moudghil, 2nd Prashant Kumar PK, 3rd Yogesh Lakhani, 4th Karanbir Singh Bedi, 5th Klaudia Honedar. Apparently Sandeep Singh Matharu dropped out in Leg 7!! Looks like you were fed wrong info here as well.
10th Raid de Himalaya ends in Controversy
The 9 day grueling Raid-de-Himalaya X-treme 4 wheel category ended in a controversy, apparently because of an error on the part of the organizers in tabulating the penalty points accumulated midway through the race, which in the end altered the result dropping Sanket Shanbagh who was running a close second being declared to have finished at 5th position.
“The error was pointed out on the last day of the Raid, without giving me a chance to get back into the position and nobody owned up how the computing error had come about, said Shanbagh.
After being shown in second place on the official site till the penultimate day of the Raid, a dejected Shanbagh said, “I’m disappointed and depressed as my position was the only one that suffered the most.”
Defending champion Suresh Rana despite the error emerged victorious for the fifth time in a row. After the error was corrected Capt Amrinder Brar who was shown in 4th position till the last but one day moved into 2nd place. Harprit Singh Bawa has been shown at 3rd place and Anil Wadia at fourth.
The Raid was flagged off from Hotel Peterhoff on October 1 and the rallying began in earnest on October 2 travelling from Shimla to Manali, Manali-Kaza, Kaza-Schiling-Dankar-Kaza, Kaza-Patseo, Patseo-Leh, Leh-Kargil, Kargil-Penzi la-Kargil and Kargil-Leh in the next eight days, which comprised of one Leg each day. Except for Leg 8, Kargil-Leh, which was entirely a transport section, Legs 1 to 7 saw intense competition amongst the rallyists.
Suresh Rana led throughout the event and clocked the fastest timings all the way till Leg 5 at the end of which he had built up an insurmountable 26 min 20 sec lead over second placed Sanket who, as per the official results, was 10 min 35 sec ahead of third placed Harprit Singh Bawa and a good 18 min 26 sec ahead of fourth placed Capt Amrinder S Brar, who eventually ended up in second place.
Finding himself far behind Rana and much ahead of the rest of the competition, Sanket too had started conserving his T2 category gypsy after Leg 4 by which time the official results had declared him 13 min 31 sec ahead of Bawa and 20 min 43 sec ahead of Maj Shakti Bajaj and 23 min 36 sec ahead of Capt Brar.
At the end of the last competitive stage on October 8 Sanket was comfortably placed 26 min 26 sec behind Rana but 7 min 19 sec ahead of Bawa and 10 min 29 sec ahead of Capt Brar.
However, Sanket was in for a rude shock on the morning of 9th October when he came to take the start for the final transport back from Kargil to Leh. As per the ‘corrected’ results he was now 22 min 47 sec behind Rana but also 9 min 01 sec behind Capt Brar, 3 min 22 sec behind Bawa and 2 min 47 sec behind Anil Wadia. From second overall he had dropped to fifth overnight.
The organizers attributed the change due to correction of an error made between Leg 3 and Leg 4, which was discovered only on the last day.
@ Navin…
The results have been proven wrong Navin but even after being associated with Raid, we can’t comment on which is not area. Results were, as you know, the part and parcel of Raid team and officials.
@ Surinder…
Yes Surinder. U are quite correct but if you check the Raid’s site or have been following it-you must have had noticed that where the final results were first published on 8th October itself, on which the post has also been done.
The next day was to be the prize distribution. I’d put up the final results only, however, they were later on changed by the Raid officials for reasons unknown as yet.
Official Clarification from the Raid HQ
Results that are declared everyday while the Raid is running are PROVISIONAL. This means that they have not been audited and finalised. All competitors are aware of this. The purpose of the results is mainly to present a start order for the next day.
The results are audited on the last day and during the audit the error revealed itself. Rather than hide suach an error we officially accepted and corrected the same. Sanket Shanbag fell behind as a result.
It is also the prerogative of the competitor to appeal against such a change, which was not done by Shanbag. He had the right of protest which he did not use.As a result there is no use moaning now about injustice and “the result being changed to suit some people”!
The Raid has never been unfair and even after the event Shanbagh can see his Time Card books and satisfy himself. If he has beaten Brar we shall announce him as a winner…if not then we shall announce him as a potential defamer!
Go for it Sanket if you think you were actually second!
Also for all the guys blaming Neha…..not her fault really as the results of the 9th October 2008 were the audited ones and the change occured then. Her last post is based on the results of the 8th October 2008.
Vijay Parmar
President
Himalayan Motorsport