As the event moves ahead to rough off-road location in South Goa, the Predator Leg of the Force Gurkha RFC India 2015 has proven to be full of excitement and adventure with the competition getting evidently tougher than ever. Though the top four position holders remained the same as the Prologue leg, Malaysian driver Tan Eng Joo (co-driver Tan Choon Hong) from Force Motors Team jumped one step up to emerge at the top position with an overall score of 1444. Mervyn Lim (Hamizan Bin Abdul Hamid) also performed well and shifted from the third to the second spot with 1281 points.
Kabir Waraich (Yuvraj Tiwana) of Gerrari Offroaders Chandigarh, who had an excellent start but slid down the scoring sheet to the fourth position on the second day, showcased exceptional technical know-how and grit to secure the third position at the end of the Predator leg with an overall 1259 points. “The experience so far has been good and exciting with the tasks being considerably tougher than last year. For me it has been a mixed experience with the first day being very good and the second day being a little bad. Then I was doing quite well on the third day with good scores in all the SS when my tyre came off in SS16 because of which I had to take a DNF and lost points. However, I am happy that I have jumped up to the third position and will try to move to the second spot today. Then let’s see what happens.”
Kabir and his co-driver Tiwana had an excellent score card during the Predator Special Stages (SS) with 95 points in three of the SS and a perfect 100 in one. However, they lost their advantage in SS16 where they got only 10 points because of which they are 22 points behind Mervyn Lim at the end of the six Special Stages of the Predator Leg of RFC India 2015. The day was not so good for Gurmeet Virdi (Kirpal Tung) who slipped from first to fourth position in one single day. Though he scored 90 points in three of the six Special Stages of the Predator Leg, he got merely 18 points in one, 20 in another and did not attempt SS13 which had a huge impact on his scores.
As per Ashish Gupta, Founder & Director of Cougar Motorsport, the organizers of the event, “RFC India, like its Mother Event, is quite unpredictable where each day brings new and increasingly tougher challenges which can change the game completely. The event has been quite interesting so far with two Force Motors teams and two teams from Gerrari Offroaders consistently emerging as the top four position holders. However, last year the Terminator leg saw a major shift in the game with Kabir jumping from ninth to the third position. I am keen to see if something similar will happen this year as well with some other team suddenly overtaking all the others to get a podium finish.”
Siddhartha Santosh (Yanrenthung Jamio) of Bangalore Offroaders Development Association (BODA) has moved up one position to claim a place in the top five while Goan driver Cedrick Jordan DaSilva (Floyd Preston) moved from fifth to sixth position. A total of 22 teams were initially competing for the Force Gurkha RFC India 2015 trophy. However, with two teams having withdrawn, now there are 20 teams left out of which the winner of India’s only international off-road motorsport event will be announced on 31st July.
