INRC: Full Throttle team sitting pretty

Mysore, Jan 31 (IANS) Tata Motors Full Throttle team is certain to sweep the titles in the inaugural FMSCI-JK Tyre Indian National TSD Rally Championship that concludes with the sixth round to be run here Saturday.

Bangalore’s Chidananda Murthy and his experienced navigator Sujith Kumar BS of Team Full Throttle have already clinched the championship in the Pro-Stock class with a tally of 108 points from three wins and two podium finishes.

However, the battle for top honours in the Pro-Expert category is heading to the wire with Full Throttle’s Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D’Souza, also from Bangalore, locked with team-mates Karthick Maruthi and Sankar Anand from Erode.

In the Overall and class leaderboard, Gopalkrishnan and D’Souza, winners of two of the five rounds, have 78 while Maruthi and Anand, who joined Full Throttle team ahead of this round, have 71 and 77, respectively.

Behind the leaders are two more Full Throttle pairs of Sachin Singh-Chandrasekar M (61 points), who won the second round in Ranchi, and fifth round winners Girijashankar Joshy-Chandramouli M (53).

The Tata team has already annexed the constructors’ championship with an unbeatable tally of 206 points going into the final round while Volkswagen (81) and Mahindra (35).

The Rally will have a ceremonial flag-off at the beautiful Lalitha Mahal Palace hotel at the foot of the Chamundi Hills with Karnataka Medical & Education Minister & Mysore District in-charge SA Ramdas doing the honours.

The Rally commencing Saturday morning will cover 170 km, traversing through Nanjangud, Gundulpet, Heggadadevana Kote and Hunsur areas before returning to Mysore.

IANS 2013-01-31 18:34:02