After having a tough start to the competition admits heavy rainfall and a surprise night stage, The Isuzu RFC 2018 moved into the third day with the contestants greeted by even more tougher challenges. The 3rd Day of Isuzu Rain forest challenge 2018 saw 4 Special Stages of varying difficulty levels. The competition was held at Suquerbag Quepem Goa with the contestants maneuvering the though terrain to retain the top spot.
At a time of announcing of the provisional results for Special Stage 6-9 Sanbir Singh Dhaliwal and co-driver Gurpartap Singh Sandhu of Chandigarh retained the top pole position with a lead of 687 out of total 900 points.
Veteran rallyist Jagat Nanjappa and co-driver Chetan Changappa from Coorg also held onto the second position with 689 points, while Malaysian driver Mervyn Lim and co-driver Alex Tan representing Team G.O.A Fairmount, jumped up eleven spots to claim the third position with 567 points. Closely catching to the top position was defending RFC India champion Gurmeet Virdi and co-driver Kirpal Singh Tung with 565 points, while at fifth position. Doctor Chaintanya Challa and co-driver Shanbarish Jagarpu from Hyderabad stood with 526 points
Sanbir Singh Dhaliwal, who is representing Chandigarh based off road club Gerrari Offroaders, said ‘’ There is no pressure on me whatsoever to retain the top position. I am just happy with how things have gone for me so far. I am not taking the rankings seriously as a large part of the competition is still remaining. My agenda in the coming days would be to compete all the stages without damaging my vehicle and enjoy the sport. I am hoping that my vehicle endured all the stress I am putting on it.’’ Sanbir also seemed unfazed by the results on the scoreboard and preferred to focus on the future.
In SS6, the competitors had to drive through an S- shaped track, and then climb up through two gates, using a winch. SS7 involved going down towards a track, where the contestants had two ascends ahead of them, where they had to take a slope, climb up and take a U-turn to return back down to the same spot while making a hard left only to climb up and end at the stop box.
SS8 threw a new challenge at the participants as they were required to a speed run for 100 meters after which they had to climb 3.5 feet tall wall, go down and incline; make a U-turn head back up then climb up a 60 degree steep slope and speed up towards the end box. If all of these stages did not prove challenging enough, SS9 stood to the credentials of the competition of being India’s toughest competition by throwing in a large number of obstacles to tackle along with the track. The competitors began by driving though a water pit and descend though a drop; then climb up an incline by making use of a winch or a sand ladder, following another incline and than driving through a gate only to climb another slope before heading towards the finishing box.
Another RFC India debutant Chow Ujjal Namshum and co-driver Imnpeng Mein of Arunachal Pradesh from Team MOCA, surprised everyone with his performance on Day1 by climbing to the third position in the ranking tables. However he slipped down to the sixth position at the end of the third day. He said ‘’I had nothing to loose on the first day of the competition as nobody had any expectations from me. So there was no pressure to perform which really helped me to perform even better than before. Having reached the top of the table on the first day, my personal expectations have shot up and going forward, I want to run every stage and try and obtain the minimum number of penalties as possible. I would play it safe for another day or two after which I will try to bring more speed in my efforts.
The next set of stages will be held at the same location today and then at the Green Hills Agri Farm in Maina, Quepem on 26th and 27th of July, before eventually culminating at the Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat in Dona Paula on 28th of July.
