A short and intense rally with a big incentive for the riders. We returned to Rajasthan to eat some sand.
‘It’s different!’ If you are old enough to remember this line from the Maggi commercial, you would know it as an attempt to get people to buy into essentially the same product, albeit slightly altered.
This year’s India Baja was something similar in relation to the Desert Storm as far as its locations went, but unlike what Nestle tried to peddle, it really is a different event. Its two day format with stages run around one central location as opposed to a full cross-country rally format is supposed to be beneficial to privateers who save a fair bit on transportation and hospitality costs.
Not to mention it had a very tasty incentive as far as the two-wheel (Moto) class was concerned. The highest placed rider in the overall standings, who had not previously taken part in the Dakar Rally, would not only get a free berth to Morocco’s Merzouga Rally in May, but also one for next year’s Dakar in South America.
Needless to say, this diverted the lion’s share of the attention to the Moto class and attracted a fairly strong field, with TVS Racing once again providing RTR 450 FXs for R Nataraj and Tanveer Abdul Wahid. The returning Aravind KP also got one along with Adrien Metge leaving the overall honours fairly easy for Hero MotoSports Rally to scoop up as it provided the Hero-Speedbrain Dakar bike to Joaquim Rodrigues.
Rodrigues had given the Dakar debutants a dream start with a tenth place overall finish in South America this year (it was his Dakar debut too), and he looked pretty much untouchable. With Metge retiring on the first day itself, second place was also fairly easily sealed by Aravind, who got some much needed competition under his belt before preparing for Merzouga.
For us, who have done the Dakar this distance is nothing,” said Rodrigues, also known as J-Rod. “There was a day on the Dakar this year when we did 1,000 kilometers, which included both transport and competitive stages.
“But this is a different event of course, and I really enjoyed this place (Rajasthan), it’s a great place to go riding.”
TANVEER WINS DAKAR BERTH
With Rodrigues and Aravind both having competed in the grandest cross-country rally of them all, TVS Racing’s Tanveer Abdul Wahid became eligible for the entry thanks to his third place finish.
Amaury Sport Organisation’s (ASO, the organizer for the Dakar Rally) Xavier Gavory told autoX that this was the first time that the body had placed such an incentive for a Dakar Challenge event.
“There are Dakar Challenge events and Dakar Series events and the former are those like the India Baja that are run separately from the ASO and are not overseen by us,” Gavory said. “This is the first time that we have had such an incentive in a Dakar Challenge event because we would like to see the sport grow in India and we feel it has gotten a phenomenal response thanks to the participation of CS Santosh and Sherco-TVS.”
Tanveer winning the Merzouga and Dakar berths means that India will likely have three representatives in South America next year for the Dakar Rally.
CHIRIPAL WINS ON FOUR WHEELS
Run at a lower profile than the Moto class but featuring a very tight battle, the four-wheel crown at the India Baja went to Gaurav Chiripal and co-driver Karan Arya, who managed to make up a one minute deficit at the end of leg one to Raj Singh Rathore and co-driver Jeevarathinam J.
Himanshu Arora and co-driver Chirag Thakur had benefitted from Chiripal’s retirement in the Desert Storm to finish second overall, but took third place here in a T2 category car, as compared to Chiripal and Rathore, who were in T1 category machines.
The final gap between Chiripal and Rathore was a little over five minutes with the seemingly nimbler Grand Vitara coming into its own on twisty and sandy stretches of stages where Rathore’s Isuzu D-Max V-Cross seemed to be bogged down at times.
“A steering problem meant that I could not push as hard on the second day,” said Rathore. “But there is a lot of work that I can do with this car, and I am planning to enter it in the Raid de Himalaya.”
Seeing Rathore dive headfirst into leading the challenge for a new manufacturer in cross-country rallying is encouraging after the abrupt end of his association with Polaris. Which was on account of them abruptly ending their involvement in motorsport itself.
Taking on Suresh Rana is likely to be a different proposition to competing against Chiripal, that, too, at an event that Rana is extremely adept at. But, hopefully Indian motorsport fans will be treated to a good battle between the two, so long as Maruti doesn’t try to exert any undue influence on account of being the event’s title sponsor.
That was another aspect of the India Baja that was attractive, the absence of a nervous and pushy sponsor who is more worried about its image rather than putting in a concerted effort to compete.
Thankfully, bikesport in India doesn’t have to worry about such a situation, which consistently creates an environment for healthy competition among various brands as well as trying their luck in international venues, too.
Hats off, then, to the likes of Hero, TVS and even Mahindra in circuit racing. Long may they battle.
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