Moorthy, Nagarajan win Monsoon Challenge

Erode's MD Ganesh Moorthy and navigator T.Nagarajan retained their overnight position in the SUV Open category to emerge overall winner of the third Mahindra Monsoon Challenge in association with Apollo Tyres which concluded here Sunday.

Moorthy and Nagarajan tallied a penalty of one minute 50 seconds, while Umakanth Alva (Mangalore) and Mohamed Musthafa (Pune) made up the two-second overnight deficit to finish second in 02:17 pushing Kolkata's Sudip Kumar Ghosh and Arindam Ghosh who were in with a chance to win, eventually to the third position at 02:22.

Last year's winner Karthick Maruthi and Sankar Anand, also from Erode, hung on to the fourth spot while National TSD Rally champions Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D'Souza from Bangalore moved up two spots from their overnight eighth.

Overnight positions in the other categories remained unchanged as Kolkata's Saurav Chaterjee and Ashoke Kumar Basu claimed the honours in the SUV OE category with Philip Baklin and David Sharon topping in the Car OE segment.

The 35 competitors left Shimoga early on Sunday morning for the final leg to Goa covering about 477 Kms with intermittent rains giving them company right through the drive.

In all, the participants covered 1,200 Kms after starting on Friday from Bangalore for the first leg that ended in Mangalore for an overnight stop. The vehicles then travelled from Mangalore to Shimoga on Saturday for the second leg before finishing in Goa on Sunday.

Provisional classification (after Leg 3):

SUV Open: MD Ganesh Moorthy / T Nagarajan 1 (1min, 50secs); Umakanth Alva / Mohamed Musthafa 2 (02:17); Sudip Kumar Ghosh / Arindam Ghosh 2 (02:22).

SUV OE: Saurav Chatterjee / Ashoke Kumar Basu 1 (03:53); Subir Roy / Nirav Mehta 2 (04:23); T Sreenivasan / N Sukumaran 3 (07:53).

Car OE: Philip Baklin / David Sharon 1 (05:25); Wilson Padayatil / Kuriakose Elias Paarel 2 (07:11); S Gopalakrishnan / V Sekar 3 (07:40).

Corporate: Rajpal Navalkar / Sagar M 1 (05:20); Sudhindra Hebbar TA / Arun SSB 2 (06:30); Subhash Chandra / Umashankar 3 (1hr, 11mins, 33secs).

Amateur: Alfred Raymond A / Ram Kumar N 1 (11:15); Harsha K Hiriyal / Prashanth BS 2 (02:29:02); RS Naresh Kumar / Shanmugasundaram T 3 (03:15:00).

All Ladies: Cheshta Sood / Pratima 1 (01:09:20). Couple: Garima Avtar / Dhiraj Arora 1 (06:07).