The penultimate day of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare Rally witnessed high drama as the fourth leg of the Extreme Category was cancelled today after the local forest department officials denied permission for the vehicles to drive through the routes scheduled for two stages.
The Rally was to run through Valparai in the Annamalai mountain range, about 130 km from here, located inside the Tata Tea estates but the forest department raised the issue of noise pollution despite the organisers had the permission of local police and the Estate to hold the competitive stages.
Annamalai Tiger Reserve officials did not pay heed to repeated requests from the organisers to allow them to go ahead with the stages, resulting in the participants losing out valuable time.
Thus, the overnight positions at the end of Leg 3 remained unchanged.
Delhi-based Amanpreet Ahluwalia and his co-driver Venu Ramesh continued to dominate the standings in their Maruti Gypsy with a cumulative three day timing of 03:05:37 hrs, a good overall lead of four minutes and 16 seconds over second-placed Suresh Rana and Parminder Thakur (03:09:53 hrs) in their Grand Vitara.
Imran Khan/Gagan Vijay was another 52 minutes 19 seconds behind the leader with a cumulative time of 03:57:56 hrs.
"The two super stages planned at Valparai in Annamalai today had to be called off after initial flag off due to technical reasons. The result table remains the same as yesterday. The rally will enter its final leg at Bargur tomorrow morning at 6 am as planned and end at Bangalore," said Jaidas Menon, President Motorsport Inc., the organiser of Dakshin Dare Rally.
