Santosh Kumar and co-driver Nagarajan from Tamil Nadu conquered the first round while Vinay Kumar, ably assisted by navigator Ravi Kumar took the overall honours in the premier class in the second round as the FMSCI Indian National Regularity Run Championship (South Zone) concluded the first event of Utsav de Hampi, here on Sunday. Favourites and three-time national champions Karthik Maruthi and Sankar Anand of Erode had to be content with a second-place and a fourth overall as another TN pair, Keerthy Prasad and co-driver Sakthivel did well to bag overall second on Day 1.
But it was the ladies, Aparna Pathak and Lalitha Gowda, the techies from Bengaluru, who maintained average speeds as they not only won the Ladies Class in both the rounds but beat many stalwarts in the process and even won the corporate class in the first round besides 3 more podiums.
Mangalore duo Ashwin Pinto and Sandeep D'Silva came back to beat Pruthvi Reddy and co-driver Anoop KV, after losing to the latter, in the first round to become the Stars of Karnataka. The father-son duo of Anil and Amal Abbas won the Corporate category in Round 2. Col. Joshua and Anita won a double in the Couple Class. Neha Tiwary, Communications Manager, JK Tyre, and Santosh HM Rohit Gowda and Karan Rajesh from Motorsports Academy of Vijayanagar, flagged off Rally de Hampi, the first event of Utsav de Hampi at Royal Orchid here on Sunday. "But it was the Karnataka Tourism concept of Road Safety that brought focus on to motorsports and Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES) rightly chipped in to make Utsav de Hampi as part of the district inauguration festival," Shivayogi Kalsad, IAS, MD, KSRTC, who gave away the trophies along with Sunny of JK Tyres, and Umesh Kulkarni of Royal Orchid. All the athletes were unanimous in praising the local organisers' Motorsports Academy of Vijayanagar, especially Santosh, Rohit and their efficient teams, for a well-organised event.
( With inputs from ANI )
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