The 2014 FMSCI Indian Rally Championship (IRC) resumes after a three-month break with the Rally de Bengal, the fourth round of the series, to be run over two days from Friday.
The field for the event is rather disappointing with just 20 cars in fray, five of which in the top-end IRC class that should see a fresh battle between championship leader Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) in a Mahindra XUV 500 and veteran Samir Thapar (Gurinder Mann) piloting a Mitsubishi Evo X for team JCT Rallying.
Thapar stamped his authority in the previous round in Chennai with a brilliant win over Gill who though leads the Overall championship with 107 points to his rival's 51 while Arjun Rao (Satish Rajagopal) in a Volswagen Polo is placed third on 48 points.
Behind the leaders is local hero and Gill's teammate Amittrajit Ghosh (Ashwin Naik), also in a XUV 500, but ninth Overall on the leaderboard with just 25 points, all of which he garnered in the first round at Nashik before retiring in the next two outings.
Much of the focus will also be on the tight battle for honours in the IRC 1600 class where only one point separates leader Phalguna Urs (Anoop Kumar) and Arjun Rao while Vikram Devadasen (Srikanth Gowda) of Team Yokohama is a further four points adrift. All the three crews will be in the Polo.
The IRC 2000 class has Rahul Kanthraj (Vivek Bhatt), driving a Mitsubishi Cedia for Team Yokohama, firmly in the lead with 108 points while Byram Godrej (Somayya A.G.) in second on 69 in a Polo.
Adith K.C. (Harish K.N.) in a Honda City, with 98 points, would be looking to consolidate his position in the FMSCI 1600 Cup where he is 30 points clear of Parag Dhiwar (Aditya Dhiwar) who will be in a Maruti Baleno.
The two-day event will be run on two physical Special Stages, Alpha (16.88 km) and Beta (13.75 km). While the Alpha Stage will be run four times Friday, the cars will do three loops of Beta Sunday before returning to the parc ferme. The total distance of the Rally is 578.29 km.
