National Car Rally comes to Chennai after seven years

Bangalore, Sep 4: Stage is all set for Motorsports Inc Rally of the South 2007 to be held in Chennai from September 21-23 on the internationally followed stage rally format.

The three-day event was a Candidate round for the Motorsports Association of India (MAI) run Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) 2008.

"We are planning to run a spectator friendly Super Special Stage in the city and we are almost on the verge of getting the Government permissions, etc.", said Jaidas Menon, Director of Motorsports Inc, an organisation based at Bangalore that runs Motorsport events all over the country.

Mr Menon said the Rally was being held in Chennai after a gap of seven years, according to a release here today.

He said that "more than 30 teams have confirmed participation, including Team MRF and Red Rooster Racing. National Champion Rallyists Lohith Urs, Arjun Balu, Vikram Mathias, Girijashankar Joshi and Amritajit Ghosh are among the confirmed entries", he added.

A National Champion co-driver, Menon would be assisted by another Champion co-driver Sujith Kumar, who will be the Clerk-of-the-Course (COC) for the event. "Our goal was to get into the INRC next year and run an Asia Pacific Rally Championship round by 2010", he added.

The Rally would feature the Super Special Stage on the September 21st, followed by 2 days of Stage Rallying. "There will be about 100 Km of competitive stage distance, in the 500 km rally and it is a full and full dirt event", Sujith Kumar said.

The event was to run on the side roads of the East Coast Road (ECR).

Mitsubishi Motors and MRF Limited are the co-sponsors of the event, and Polk Audio, Methods, and Maayajal are supporting the event. The MAI would police the event and confirm whether the event is running to National Rallying rules and confirm the candidature for the 2008 Indian National Rally Championship.

Chennai which is home to many a well-known rallyist in India, would with this rejuvenation of rallying, oil its rusty joints and get into the National Rallying scene again.

UNI