The Rally de North was supposed to be national rallying’s big return to Delhi-NCR, but ended up being extremely anti-climactic.
I’ll admit that not every motorsport event I cover lives up to a certain standard that is aspired to by whoever organizes it. Such is the way of the sport in India and I have been told by those far more experienced than me in motorsport journalism to not have expectations. Mainly on account of the many ways in which those expectations can be dashed. And to be fair to those involved in a sport that is very much on the periphery for most to the time, it is not always their fault. Sometimes sh..well, stuff happens, let’s just leave it at that.
RIGHT INGREDIENTS
Despite the wise words of those more experienced journos, and having seen Formula 1’s presence in India fade due to reasons that had little to do with motorsport, I had some sizeable expectations from the return of national rallying to Delhi-NCR.
Not only was the Indian National Rally Championship coming back to north India after over a decade but the machinery on offer had evolved as well, which is saying a lot when you look at the state of touring car racing in India.
Even the format of rallying in India had changed in order to reflect the trends followed by rallying worldwide in an effort to control costs. Speaking to current INRC points leader Amittrajit Ghosh, who has competed in the British Rally Championship, made things clearer.
“National level rallying championships the world over are run on a cost-per-kilometer basis for the drivers,” Ghosh told autoX. “That cost is dependant on what category a particular car falls under.
“So for national rallies to run at 120-150 kilometers makes no sense as the cost goes up and many of these rallies in Europe and the UK use the same stages as those events you will find on FIA European and World Rally Championship. So there is usually a cap of 85 to 90 kilometers for the total distance of a rally in the BRC and other national level events.
“We have made a conscious effort to follow the same format, which has two or maybe three long stages that are run multiple times in order to make the distance. It makes things economical and we can run more events too and be done earlier in a weekend as well, which cuts down on travel and board.”
HARSH REALITY
So the INRC and Indian Rally Championship classes in India were running smarter. Great, expectations went up and even more so when former national and Asia Pacific Rally Champion Gaurav Gill described the stages for the Rally de North. The words ‘spread out’, ‘blind crests’ and ‘undulating terrain’ were used and coming from Gill, I took that as a reason to be even more eager and expectant.
But the reality was quite different. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself but the two stages of the rally were literally the dirt roads that ran on either side of the KMP Expressway (Delhi Western Peripheral Expressway). Eight kilometers each of a straight road with temporary chicanes installed to break the monotony. Technically that made the Rally de North a speedsprint rather than a rally. Oh, and the reason there were only two stages? The third and fourth had to be cancelled on account of a cattle crossing.
The organizers of the rally had taken the course of the event too close to the Asola wildlife sanctuary, which attracted a PIL leading to the National Green Tribunal cancelling the clearance that had already been given to the rally.
No one was able to say why the less sensitive areas in Greater Noida – possibly even using part of the Buddh International Circuit – were not chosen as an alternative. While I promised myself to not have expectations, from now on I guess I should at least keep my fingers crossed for sense to prevail in next year’s edition.
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