The husband-wife combination of Sathis Gopalakrishna and navigator Savera D'Souza won both overall and Expert class titles in the Grand Krishna Rally of Chikmagalur, the opening round of the FMSCI-Indian National TSD Rally Championship here on Sunday.
Bangalore's Gopalakrishna and Savera, who were participating in the Expert class which allows the use of unlimited gadgets, upstaged reigning national champion Karthick Maruthi and Sankar Anand (finished fourth), among other key contenders. Azgar Ali and Md Musthafa from Kolkata came second and Vishwas (Natarajan) third in both overall classification and Expert class.
Team Tata Motors' Chidananda Murthy (BS Sujith Kumar) from Bangalore, gunning for their third straight National crown in the Stock class, also began on a winning note in their category. Amarnath (Mukthiyar) from Bangalore finished second and Ravindra Kumar (Kumar M), also from Bangalore, third in the Stock class.
Seventeen cars had registered for the National championship (eight in Expert and nine in Stock) and another 15 in the local category for the Chikmagalur rally which was run over 163-kms and covered some of the most scenic spots in the picturesque coffee-growing region of Karnataka.
Competitors and teams registered for the nine-round National championship will have to take part in a minimum six rounds, with one round in each zonal region mandatory, to quality for honours.
The second round will be held in Jaipur on June 28 and 29.
TSD rallying attracts a wide spectrum of people as speed is not the main criteria; the objective is to maintain precise times and precise average speeds on various segments of a predefined route.
