Gill, Ghosh to battle for Rally of Coimbatore

The second round of the FMSCI-Indian Rally Championship, to be held here this weekend, has attracted a whopping 36 entries across four categories.
Leading the charge in the Rally of Coimbatore is the reigning Asia Pacific Rally champion Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif), winner of the opening round in Nashik, and his Mahindra Adventure teammate Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik), the defending National champion - both in Mahindra XUV 500s.
With SUVs competing alongside Saloon cars for the overall title this season, New Delhi's Gill returned to the fray for top honours after having won the SUV category last year, as Kolkata's Ghosh bagged his second straight National crown.

Gill, the 2011 National champion, won the Round 1 Rally of Maharashtra last month by 1 minute and 48 seconds despite being docked a penalty for delay at the service park. Ghosh, who moved to SUV this season, finished second.
Gill's and Ghosh's no-holds-barred approach is certain to thrill the spectators in the two speedy gravel Special Stages with windmills for backdrop, in a city widely regarded as the spiritual home of rallying in India.
LMW and Black Thunder stages are 26.10 kms and 12.65 kms long respectively, and will see participants compete on each stage twice on Saturday (July 12) and once on Sunday (July 13).

The exciting Super Special Stage will be run on the Kari Motor Speedway (KMS) track. The rally will begin at the KMS on Saturday and conclude on Sunday.

With Round 2 of the JK Tyre Racing Championship to be staged at the KMS over the weekend, motorsports fans in the city are in for a rally-n-race double treat.
The third Mahindra Adventure-XUV 500 has Sunny Sidhu and PV Srinivas Murthy in it. Challenging the SUVs will be PG Abhilash and Kumar Ramaswamy of R3A PGA Motorsport in a Mitsubishi Evo6 in the IRC (Saloon cars/SUVs upto 3500cc).
Seven cars have registered for the IRC 2000cc (Group N, 2WD), another 12 for IRC 1600cc (Group N, 2WD) and 13 for the FMSCI 1600cc Cup (for cars homologated prior to Dec 31, 2007). Participants in the IRC 2000cc, the IRC 1600cc and the FMSCI 1600cc Cup also compete for the overall championship (IRC).

Mangalore's Arjun Rao, the 2013 INRC 1600 winner, returns to action after missing the opening round. Along with co-driver Sathish Rajagopal, he will compete in the IRC 1600 in a VW Polo.