Dakshin Dare: Sandeep Sharma takes lead on day two

Day two of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare 2014 saw Team Maruti’s Sandeep Sharma and Varun Davessar, driving a Maruti Gypsy take the lead of the seven-day rally raid, displacing overnight leader and defending Dakshin Dare winner Amanpreet Ahluwalia.

After the overnight halt at the town of Davangere in Karnataka, the rally set for Chitradurga – which hosted the two stages in the ‘Ultimate’ category for cars and one in the ultimate bike category.

At the end of the 475 kilometres traversed during the day, Amanpreet Ahluwalia ended up eighth overall after receiving a stop and go penalty, which promoted Sharma into overall lead. Sanjay Agarwal (co-driver Venu Ramesh Kumar) also driving a Gypsy, moved up to second with Karan AM and Shahid Salman in a Baleno, running third overall.

The duo of Druva and Roopesh who were running third overall after leg one in their Honda City, crashed out of the rally, going off the road during the opening stage of the day.

After a slow start in leg one, Suresh Rana (Parminder Thakur) made solid progress during the day and finished the leg fourth overall, with the top four competitors again covered within a minute.

In the Extreme Bike category, defending winner and leg one leader, Natraj maintained his lead on, as did Mohit Verma in second and Promod Joshua in third.

Leading after leg 2, Sharma commented, “So far the competition has been really close. The terrain has been fast, slippery and technical, and we know that from here on the difficulty level will definitely go higher with each day

“We were not expecting the Gypsies to take the lead in the first two days but now we look forward to maintaining this momentum and rank in the coming stages of the rally.”

Results

Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare, Leg 2:

Extreme Cars:

Sandeep Sharma/Varun Davessar 01:02:27
Sanjay Agarwal/Venu Ramesh Kumar  01:03:02
Karan A. M./Shahid Salman   01:03:15 

Extreme Bikes:

Natraj 00:45:36
Mohit Verma  00:47:17
Pramod Joshua 00:48:44