The team of Sandip Mukherjee and Prakash Muthusamy emerged victorious at the Elegant Steel Monsoon Drive 10, held on Sunday, November 28 making this their second consecutive win in INRRC qualifying rounds in as many weeks.
Monsoon Drive 10 was the third East Zone qualifying round of the JK Tyre FMSCI Indian National Regulatory Run Championship (INRRC) organised by Just Sportz, a Kolkata based sports management company.
Mukherjee, 69, along with his co-driver Muthusamy, maintained a consistent performance in both the legs of the rally to incur only 174 penalty points. The team of Subir Roy and Nirav Mehta took the first runner-up position with 284 penalty points.
Favourites Ajgar Ali and Mohammed Musthafa, who have together won previous editions of Monsoon Drive, emerged the second runner-up with 396 points. The team of Deep Dutta and Chandan Sen, a reputable navigator, came a close fourth with 404 penalty points. The duo of Soumyadeb Shaw and co-driver Souvick De Sarkar finished in the fifth position with 461 penalty points.
The first leg of the rally was flagged off from Country Roads Resorts at Panchla in Howrah at 8.30 am Sunday. The competitors navigated through rural roads and dirt tracks to reach the Haldia Helipad Ground by early afternoon.
The second leg of the rally was flagged off from Haldia Helipad Ground, and culminated at the Haldia Mela grounds. It was a short but tricky leg which saw the teams put on their thinking cap even while putting the pedal to the metal.
In the Open Category, the team of Sk. Aniruddha and Barun Chowdhury took the top step of the podium with 681 penalty points, followed by veteran rallyist Ratan Kumar Paul and co-driver Debashish Ghosh in the second position with 846 penalty points. Toushik Ghosh and Debargha Mukherjee finished third with 1184 penalty points.
This year saw the introduction of a new ‘Ladies Cup’ category to encourage participation of women in motorsports. The mother-daughter duo of Nilasha Das and co-driver Ipshita Das took the first position in this category with 1390 penalty points.
The sister-in-law pair of Alivia Sheikh and Sunita Prasad finished first runner-up in this category with 3226 penalty points. Out-of-towners Jasmeet Kaur (from Gurugram) and Jyoti Iyengar (Mumbai) sealed the second runner-up position with 3374 penalty points.
The INRRC will have 16 Qualifying rounds across six zones, with the top Five competitors from each zone qualifying for the finals.
Himalayan Drive 9, the marquee motorsports event in this part of India, will form the final round of INRRC and will be held in North Bengal & Sikkim in March 2021. The winners of the Finals will thus become National Champions & will be called the Indian National Regularity Run Champion 2021.
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