New rally series to bring competition to Himalayas

Uttarakhand revs up to attract adventure tourists with the Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally, the first motorsport event on the lush, winding roads of the mountain state in nearly 25 years.

The rally will take off from state capital Dehradun in the early hours of December 22. The three-day rally will end on December 24. Entries are pouring in not just from champion rallyists across the country but amateurs as well. The total number of entries is limited to 35. Leading the top guns at the rally are Bangalore’s champion rallyists, husband-wife team of Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D’Souza. Satish and Savera are winners of Dakshin Dare, Desert Storm and other major rallies. The champions challenging the Satish-Savera duo are the driver-navigator teams of Jagmeet Gill-Chandan Das and Ajgar Ali- Mohammad Mustafa.

Gill and Das are TSD winners of Raid De Himalaya 2013 and second overall in Dakshin Dare. They are driving for Team Maruti. Gill hails from Chandigarh and Das from Kolkata.

Ajgar Ali, from Haldia near Kolkata, has teamed up with champion TSD navigator Mohammad Mustafa from Erode, Tamilnadu. Ali has major wins to his credit including the top spot in the Mughal Rally 2013 (Car category) and the Hornbill Rally, Nagaland. Also in the fray is champion TSD rallyist Vishnu Singh of Jaipur, with navigator Adithya Anthony of Bangalore, who ranked first in the SUV category at The Mughal Rally 2013.

The rally is being organized by Uttarakhand Tourism. State Tourism Minister Mrs Amrita Rawat said that the route of the rally has been designed to touch some of the major tourism hotspots of the state through mountains and plains. “The rally will spread the message nationally and internationally that the state is the ‘eco-adventure tourism destination’ for skiing, white-water rafting, wildlife photography, and now also motorsport,” said Mrs Rawat.

Secretary Tourism Dr UK Panwar stated that the rally will cover approximately 850 kilometers over the mountains and plains of Uttarakhand. The rally is open to any brand or model of automobile. SUVs and cars will fight for top honours in their own categories respectively.

The Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally is being organized by Himalayan Motorsport. This is the premier Shimla-based motorsport club which organizes the world-famous Raid De Himalaya. The Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally is supported by Maruti Suzuki and JK Tyres. Mr Vijay Parmar, President of Himalayan Motorsport, said that motorsport has great potential to grow in Uttarakhand, and will showcase its excellent tourism destinations nationally and internationally.

The Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally is authorized by the Federation of Motorsport Clubs of India (FMSCI). On December 22, the Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally will begin early morning from Dehradun. It will go via Rishikesh, Shivpuri, Dev Prayag, Rudra Prayag, Karan Prayag, Chamoli and Joshimath to end at the ski resort at Auli. The rallyists will cover about 300 kilometers on the first day of the event.

The route from Dehradun to Shivpuri and beyond features some of the most popular stretches in the world for white water rafting. On Day 2, the Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally will come down from Auli to Karan Prayag. It will then proceed towards Chaukhutiya and Kumerian to reach Ramnagar on the east of Jim Corbett Park. On Day 2, the rally will cover about 280 kilometers of country roads.

On Day 3, the rally will go across some of the most picturesque roads in the state via Nainidhada and Kotdwar to culminate at Dehradun.

The Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally