The 8th edition of the Maruti Dakshin Dare concluded on 5th August in Goa. The overall winner turned out to be Suresh Rana along with co-driver Parminder Thakur.
The Maruti Dakshin Dare is definitely a very challenging and thrilling rally that takes place every year in South India. This time, we travelled from Bangalore to Coorg, Shimoga and Goa, thus covering a total distance of 2200 kms in 6 days. All the stages of the rally had a lot of surprises and challenges in store for participants.
We got a chance to witness all the stages of the rally and each track was unique in its own way. There were a lot of challenges for the rallyists and it was interesting to see them tackling all the obstacles with their rally-prepped vehicles. The tracks had a blend of mud, slush, stones and ruts, etc. so it was all about tackling these terrains along with maintaining speed and position which requires a sharp mind, brilliant driving skills and of course good judgement.
This time there were a total of 190 participants which is also the highest number till now in the history of Dakshin Dare. There were also 16 women participants. Suresh Rana and Parminder Thakur were crowned as the overall winners of the rally closely followed by Sandeep Sharma and Karan Arya, in the Ultimate Cars category.
In the Ultimate Bikes category, T Nataraj stood first while Febin Jose was the first runner-up. In the TSD Endurance category, Ganesh Moorthy and T Nagarajan stood first followed by Raghu Nandan and M Prakash. All the winners of all categories were felicitated at a prize distribution ceremony in Goa.
2016 Maruti Dakshin Dare Winners
Ultimate Cars:
1. Suresh Rana & Parminder Thakur – 06:51:15
2. Sandeep Sharma & Karan Arya – 06:57:21
3. Jasmohan Saini & Vikram Thakur – 07:07:21
Ultimate Bikes:
1. T Nataraj – 05:26:33
2. Febin Jose – 06:12:18
3. Akash Aithal – 06:16:07
Endurance Cars (TSD) day-end penalty:
1. Ganesh Moorthy & T Nagarajan – 00:16:49
2. Raghu Nandan & M Prakash – 00:18:08
3. Karthick Maruthi & Sankar S Ananad – 00:19:55