Motorsports: Maruthi and Anand top

The Erode pair of Karthik Maruthi and navigator Sankar Anand in a Mahindra Scorpio emerged overall champions in the Endurance (TSD) category of the 5th Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare Rally which concluded here Friday.

Runners-up last year, Maruthi and Karthik finished with a penalty of one minute, 32 seconds, while holding off National TSD Rally champions Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D'Souza from Bangalore who were placed second, 14 seconds adrift, while Kolkata's Sudhip Kumar Ghosh and Arindam Ghosh ended up third with 1:50.

Maruthi and Anand enjoyed two excellent outings in Leg 1 and 5 when they earned just 12 and 15 seconds penalty, respectively, that made all the difference in the end as the Bangalorean husband-wife tandem paid dearly for some "small errors".

Provisional final classification:

Overall: Karthik Maruthi/Sankar Anand (Mahindra Scorpio) 1 (1min, 32secs penalty); Satish Gopalkrishnan/Savera D'Souza (Grand Vitara) 2 (0:01:46); Sudhip Kumar Ghosh/Arindam Ghosh (Maruti Esteem) 3 (0:01:50).

SUV Open: Maruthi/Anand 1; Gopalkrishnan/D'Souza 2; K Prasad/Nishanth 3 (0:04:57).

Car Open: Sudhip Kumar Ghosh/Arindam Ghosh 1; Ganesh Moorthy/T Nagarajan (Mahindra Logan) 2 (0:02:01); Babno Machaiah/Natarajan (Esteem) 3 (0:03:56);

Car OE: Palghuna Raghavendra/Jeevarathinam (VW Polo) 1 (0:07:41); Sai Prasad/Ganesh (Baleno) 2 (0:13:00); Saurav Chatterjee/Ashoke Bhattacharya (Esteem) 3 (0:13:14);

Manufacturer (Suzuki Maruti): Jagmeet Gill/Musthafa (Maruti Gypsy) 1 (0:02:27); Somdeb Chanda/Amit Saha (SX4) 2 (0:03:59); Ravi Chutani/Anurag Shukla (SX4) 3 (0:44:01).

Corporate: Pavan AK/Sagar (Scorpio) 1 (0:04:27); Philip Baklin/David Sharon (Chevrolet) 2 (0:11:18); Manjunath GM/Avinash (Esteem) 3 (0:17:02). Corporate Select: Pramod Vig/Abhilash (Swift) 1 (0:42:17); Ashish Gupta/Ashwin Ratnakaran (SX4) 2 (1hr, 08mins, 04secs).

Couples: Sreejith PA/Krishnaveni KC (Maruti Baleno) 1 (0:14:33). All Ladies: Gauri Gupta/ Poulami Dutta (Esteem) 1 (1:28:47).