Motorsport News
THE DUO of Gaurav Gill and Musa Sherif had yet another successful outing in their Mahindra XUV500 as they drove away with top honours at the 2018 Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare. This was the 50th rally for the Gill and Sherif pairing and saw them registering their 31st win. This was their 2nd Dakshin Dare win. Covering a total distance of 2,000-kilometre starting from Bengaluru on September 2 and traversing through Karnataka and Maharashtra, the 2018 edition of Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare concluded in Goa on September 8. The winning pair took 6hr 57m 44s to complete the rally winning each of the five legs. Finishing over 15 minutes behind them were Philippos Matthai and PVS Moorthy in the second XUV500. The result meant that Mahindra managed the best possible result registering an impressive 1-2 finish. Maruti Suzuki’s Samrat Yadav with Karan Aukta grabbed the final podium spot with a time of 7hr 21m 10s.
In the two-wheeler class, Vishwas S.D. brought his Yamaha home in first place, followed by Vinay Prasad and Yuva Kumar. The very last special stage, SS12 saw the lead change hands as Yuva ran out of luck. He was leading the rally until his bike broke down just 15km shy of the finish line. Despite his best efforts to repair the damage and continue, he was unable to make up time and had to settle for third place with Vishwas making the most of Yuva’s misfortune.