MSIL Raid de Himalaya 2016 Rally Report – Day 2

Words and Images : Prabhakar Rao AVR

The Day 2 of the Raid De Himalaya Started at 7:30 in the Morning in Kaza and team Motoroids was up much earlier covering the event. A special mention needs to be made of Mobil 1, the premium lubricant brand from ExxonMobil Corporation here, which made it possible for us to cover the event in such great detail. Apart from Raid de Himalaya, Mobil 1 has also powered the 2016 edition of Desert Storm and Dakshin Dare and has extended their support to enable our motorsport team to bring the coverage to you.

A prolonged association with some of the most gruelling motorsport events in the world and specialisation in making lubricants for the most taxing automotive applications gives Mobil 1 the rare self-assurance to connect its name with a rally as punishing as the Raid.

Getting back to the Raid, Day 2 had 3 Special Stages totalling to almost 98km. Stage 2 & 4 of the Rally start at the Kaza Gate & end at Demul junction – 39.10 Km of Ghats each time. It’s essentially the same Route taken twice. In between Stage 2 & 4, the Stage 3 Runs from Lingti to Shichling – 29.17 kms. All the roads in Day 2 are a mix of dirt & tarmac. The hilly terrain combined with the natural formations welcomed the competitors for the daunting task of completing the stage ahead of others. The roads have sweeping corners & lots of hairpin bends. These stages are less difficult when compared to the Stage 1 of Day 1. However even these roads are no less when looked upon in their own right. The Spiti valley has its own distinction of some terribly bad roads & blind corners which have consumed many. The Roads for most part of the day are on Mountains – either climbing them rapidly or Descending in an equally quick pace.

A total of 65 starts were recorded for the day 2. The close calls & lessons learnt from day 1 ensured that there were very few retirements by the end of the day 2. It looked like the teams are well prepared for the day. The service teams worked double time to keep their vehicles roadworthy after the grueling day 1. The day ended with 62 Competitors posting final times with only 3 retirements in total. That was a great improvement over the previous day which saw a huge 33 retirements. The day even saw the tables turned a lot. The leaders in the groups changed due to the varied nature of the Stages. The tarmac part of the stages at times was pretty good & vehicles made rapid progress in those sectors.

Special stage 2 started at Kaza Gate. The road goes via the Scenic Komic Village towards Lidang and ends at the Demul Junction. The Competitors started from where they left the fight at around 7 in the morning. They passed through these high altitude roads for 39 kms. The next part of the road from Demul Junction to Lingti is the transport stage of 17.50 kms. From Lingti Special Stage 3 of the Rally (the Second Special Stage of the day) started. Stage 3 goes through the famous Dhankar Fort to the end at Shichling for 29.17 kms. This route is predominantly tarmac or broken tarmac with some very bad stretches at places. The competitors then have the Transport stage from Shichling to Kaza Gate – 30km. The final Special stage of the day is again Kaza Gate to Demul Junction – Special Stage 4 (the same Special stage 2). Competitors then limped back home exhausted physically but still optimistic about the next day from Demul Junction to Kaza. This is essentially a Transport stage.

In the 2W Xtreme category Tanveer AW (202) started with a 4 Sec Lead over Natraj R (201). Tanveer extended his lead over Natraj to 3 min. 40 Sec by the end of the day. Both were on The Factory TVS RTR 450s. Umang Saxena (223) riding on a KTM Duke 390 who was 4th Overall at the end of Day 1 Jumped up by one place displacing Vishwas SD ( 205) on Yamaha WR450F from third place. They were close to each other overall with a difference of 40 Seconds between them. However Natraj had a lead of almost 30 minutes over Umang.

In the 4W the day saw a change of top position. Lhakpa Tsering (01) who started with a 54 second lead over Suresh Rana Lost his Overall position by the end of the day. Suresh Rana with some brilliant driving took an overall lead of a healthy 7 min 13 sec. Sandeep Sharma (05) retained his third spot in the Gypsy. He reduced the lead of Lhakpa from almost 8 minutes to nearly 2 min. Harpreet Singh Bawa (07) in a Grand Vitara Jumped from 5th place to 4th pushing down Jas Mohan Singh (10) in Gypsy. Finally they were having a gap of only 8 seconds. Clearly the day was favoring the Vitaras & Gypsys as the road conditions had less of the rocky river beds or gravel & more of the tarmac. Most of the quads had a difficult time in keeping up the pace due to this. They eventually lost time as well as positions. The short day came to an early end with ample of rest being given to the service teams for another very long day – Day 3.
The Final Classification at the end of Day 2:
4W Extreme