Ajgar, Musthafa retain Himalayan title

Champions Ajgar Ali and Mohammed Musthafa successfully defended their title at the Biswa Bangla JK Tyre Himalayan Drive 6 that ended in Darjeeling on Wednesday.

Ali and Musthafa beat back the Kolkata duo of Subir Roy and Nirav Mehta by just five penalty points to bring the curtains down on the rally.

The five-day event, India’s only tri-nation TSD (time, speed, distance) rally, took 24 teams across Nepal, North Bengal and Bhutan over 1,615 kilometers of tough terrain before ending in Darjeeling. The competition remained close right from day one with the defending champions picking up 54 penalty points, just eight points less than the Subir-Nirav duo who gave them hot chase all the way.

In the next leg, Subir and Nirav performed slightly better by getting 54 penalty points, only two less that Ajgar and Musthafa.

In the last leg, the difference in scores was even closer, with the Ajgar-Musthafa team picking up 20 penalty points, just one more than Subir and Nirav.

Two legs of the rally in Nepal were cancelled due to technical problems arising out of rallying through different time zones.

In the Open category, Gagan Sethi and Dhiraj Arrora maintained their lead right from the first day and emerged champions with a cumulative score of 1,493 penalty points.

Govind Dalmia and Anand Agarwala from Siliguri finished a distant second while Pranjal More and Milindo Paul, also from Siliguri, finished third.

In the SUV category, Amit Dhanotia and Anuragh Agarwala emerged winners with 9,461 penalty points, while in the ‘above 1300 cc category’, Pranai Rai and Nanki Kharki from Kalimpong took the title with 11,124 penalty points.

Another Kalimpong team, comprising of Bimal Kumar Poudel and Rajendra Gaire were the winners in the under 1,300 cc category with 64,064 penalty points.