Defending champion Ahluwalia grabs early advantage

Defending champion Amanpreet Ahuluwalia and Sudeep Haldar (co-driver) led the timesheets in the extreme car category after a tricky opening day at the Sixth Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare rally, which stopped over in the sleepy town of Davangere here today.
Ahluwalia, in his Maruti Gypsy, clocked the combined fastest time of 30 minutes and 35 seconds to be ahead of Sandeep Sharma (Varun Davessar) and C Druva (B C Roopesh), who managed 30:42 and 31:03, respectively.
Twice runner-up Suresh Rana (Parminder Thakur) was running sixth on 31:42.
The drivers covered a liasioning distance of around 200km from Bangalore for the two special stages in the Chitradurga town near here.

However, they could only cover the 12.51 km Windmill Farm stage twice as the double run on the 13.61 km Alfa stage was cancelled due to safety reasons.
Delhi-based Ahluwalia was confident of maintaining his lead going into day two of the five-day rally, traversing through parts of North Karnataka before culminating in Goa on August 9.

"The start has been good. We did the same stage twice today and it was challenging. The route was tricky with fast flowing corners, dips and hairpin bends. I think the organisers took the right call in cancelling the other stage, which I am told was all tarmac. They thought it could be unsafe for the general public," Ahluwalia told PTI.

"Still early days in the competition and a lot will depend on the weather. If it keeps raining, then it could be anybody's race," he added.
In the extreme bike category, Nataraj set the leading time of 30:56 ahead of Mohit Verma (32:18) and Promod Joshua (32:22).
The rally moves to Hospet tomorrow for a double run on the 26km special stage.