In a development that was highly expected, the very tasty Austrian bike KTM 200 Duke has grabbed the 1st , 2nd and 3rd positions in the recently concluded Raid-de-Himalaya 2012. KTM 200 Duke was entered in Category C which consists of Modified India–made motorcycles.
Raid de Himalaya has to be one of the toughest car and bike rallies in the world. Held at 6000m above sea level, the Raid is also the highest rally in the world. This is not all as the Raid is also the only rally in India that is known internationally and features in the International calendar of FIM.
Bajaj Auto Ltd had entered 2 KTM bikes in the event. Out of these 2, one garnered the 1st position and the other unfortunately had to drop out midway due to technical problems. The 2nd and 3rd positions at the podium too were claimed by independent riders on the KTM 200 Duke bikes.
2 KTM Service Engineers Mr. Mayank Bhatt and Mr. B Chandrashekar attended the rally. While they had gone as mere observers, their dedication towards Katooms showed when they ended up rendering full fledged service not only to the factory entered riders but to all other riders on 200 Dukes. Mayank and Chandrashekar had the luxury of sleeping on a bed for only 1 night and spent the remaining 6 nights travelling in the support cars.
The buzz doing the rounds is that the KTMs won because of the support provided by the Bajaj Auto team!
Kudos Team Ready to Race. Well done!
This is a really awesome thing.. and it is good to know that the support team, rendered help to the other participants too.. nice
There would be Orange flags everywhere on the Indian rally scene very soon 😉