INRC 2022 season Kicks Off With South India Rally

The Madras Motor Sports Club’s 45th South India Rally will take place at the MMRT track in Sriperumbudur, roughly 35 kilometres from Chennai, from April 22 to 24. The rally also serves as the opening round of the FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship 2022. The three-day race has 48 participants, including Himachal’s Aditya Thakur (co-driver Virender Singh), the freshly crowned 2021 Overall National champion who also won the INRC-3 division. Thakur has been promoted to the INRC-2 level for the 2022 season.

Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif, Kasargod), a seven-time National champion from Delhi, Bengaluru’s Karna Kadur (Nikhil Pai), who won the Asia Cup round of the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship at the same venue last month, and defending INRC-2 champion Fabid Ahmer (Sanath G) from Kerala are among the other top competitors. The Rally’s entire course is around 300 kilometres, with a competitive segment of roughly 123 kilometres. On Friday (April 22), the participants will perform a reconnaissance of the route, with the Stages taking place over the next two days.

Last month, the 2021 season, which had been postponed due to Covid-19 limitations, was finished. It means an extremely quick turnaround of around three weeks before the start of the 2022 season. Amittrajit Ghosh of England and his co-driver Ashwin Naik of Mangaluru, who had been among the top championship contenders in the elite INRC Overall category, have elected to forgo this weekend’s Rally.