Suresh Rana Wins Raid de Himalaya For 11th Time

Himachal This Week

Himachal’s Suresh Rana once again proved that he is the king of motorsports in India. Suresh Rana and co-driver PVS Murthy, of team Maruti Suzuki Motorsport were crowned winners in the Xtreme four-wheeler category in the Maruti Suzuki Raid de Himalaya 2017 concluded at Leh. This is the 11th time that Rana had ensured his victory in this most challenging driving rally in India. This was his first time in Raid de Himalaya that he tied up with PVS Murthy as navigator. In the Xtreme Moto class Abdul Wahid Tanveer of TVS Racing tooped the chart.

The 19th edition of the cross-country rally was flagged off from Manali with the stages starting on the following day. Leg 1 took competitors around 200km to Kaza in Spiti Valley via Gramphoo and Losar. The extremely rough 76km competitive section was very tricky and took a toll on both the competitors and their vehicles. In fact, after Leg 2, which took competitors back the same way towards Pang, a majority of the competitors dropped out due to vehicle damage. Suresh Rana and PVS Murthy, in their Maruti Grand Vitara, managed to build up a 20-minute lead ahead of Sanjay Razdan and Karan Aukta. In the Moto class, TVS Racing’s R Nataraj was 1min 31sec ahead of Tanveer. For the next leg competitors made their way to Kargil for two competitive stages from Sankoo to Drass and back. Suresh Rana continued to extend his lead over Razdan, as did Tanveer over Nataraj.

Leg 5 was one of the toughest stages in the rally, taking participants around 300km towards Penzi La and back via Rangdum. But Rana was still going strong as was Tanveer. Rana finished first with a 51min lead ahead of Razdan, while Sanjay Agarwal and co-driver Smitha N finished third. In the Moto-class, Tanveer finished with a 3min lead ahead of Nataraj. TVS Racing’s Rajendra RE finished third. In the Adventure category, which is held in a TSD (Time, speed, distance) format, Shubam Middha and Anshul Asati won the overall Car category while Shailendra Singh and Dinky Varghese K won the SUV class.

* Winning Raid de Himalaya is always wonderful. I still feel new to this rally as if I started it yesterday. I want to thank team Maruti Suzuki Motorsports to support me always

-Suresh Rana

Himachali Girls Win Silver In National Handball

Shubham Rahi

Himachali girls team clinched silver medal consecutively for the third year in the National Junior Handball Championship held at Ranebennur in Karnataka. Himachal’s Shivani was declared best player of the tournament. The last match was played between Haryana and Himachal, in which Himachal couldn’t win. The match was interrupted due to rain and haryana was declared winner on the basis of points. Earlier, Himachal performed very well in the entire championship. Notably, for the past two years, the junior handball team of Himachal has won silver medal in this championship.

12 Air Force Pilots Create History At Bir

Chaman Dohru

Once again history was created at the world’s most popular sight for paragliding at Bir-Billing as 12 Air Force pilots landed safely after having tandem flights and then jumping through parachute from 5, 000 and 8, 000 meters above from the ground. This event has also been registered in the Limca Book of World Records also. Every pilot was honoured with a pahari cap after the event. Deputy Commissioner, CP Verma was present on the occasion.

Himachali Lady Shines

A Himachali lady Nisha Govardhan was also a part of this troupe. Nisha got second position after landing safely in a tandem flight. Nisha hails from Solan and her in-laws are at Mataur. Nisha told that she took to nearly 400 flights until now and jumped safely. This was her first attempt of sky diving from a tandem flight, which she did successfully. She belongs to engineering wing of Air Force but sky diving is a passion for her, she asserted.

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