Tata Motors Full Throttle Dominate JK Tyre Hornbill Rally

~Take home Overall/Pro-Expert, Pro-Stock, Novice and Best Institution titles~

Delhi, December 6, 2012: Team Tata Motors Full Throttle completed a clean sweep of titles with Bangalore-based husband-wife combination of Satish Gopalkrishnan and Savera D’Souza emerging winners in the Overall and Pro-Expert categories in the JK Tyre-FMSCI Indian National TSD Rally Championship that was run as part of the Hornbill Festival, here on Thursday.

Gopalkrishnan and Savera, winners of the first round in Bangalore, picked up 25 points that moved them from third to second in the Overall standings with a tally of 60, behind leaders Karthick Maruthi and Sankar Anand (Team Mahindra) from Erode who finished seventh overall but fifth in the class.

In the Pro-Stock class, another Bangalore pair of Chidananda Murthy and navigator Sujith Kumar BS, also of Tata Motors Full Throttle team topped the charts followed by team-mates Kanth Gowda and Kuriakose Elias Parel and MD Ganesh Moorthy and M Prakash.

Full Throttle also swept more awards as the team was adjudged “Best Institution” while its team members Dimapur’s Philip Lam was declared Best Navigator and Tsote Their of Kohima, driving a Tata Xenon won the special award for “Maximum Zero” penalties.

Adding to Full Throttle’s silverware was Nitoka Chopy and Philip Lam from Dimapur in a Tata Indica, who won the top honours in the Novice class.

“We had a good outing and the route was excellent with a good mix of tarmac and dirt. Also, the pace was fairly brisk and that made it exciting. Also, the warmth and goodwill of the local people here, besides of course the Hornbill Festival, added to the ambience. We really enjoyed the event,” said Gopalkrishnan who along with Savera is acknowledged as one of the top pairings in the Time-Speed-Distance format of rallying.

The Bangalore duo, driving a Tata Indica Vista, returned a penalty time of 46 seconds, finished seven seconds ahead of private entrants Nirmal Das and Chandan Sen in a Maruti Gypsy while Jagmeet Gill and Yogesh Gupta of Team Volkswagen and driving a Vento, finished third in one minute, one second.

Murthy and Sujith, recorded their third outright win in the Pro-Stock class following their triumphs in Bangalore and Ranchi to take their championship tally to 90 points.

“We tried a new formula for our calculations and it worked. Thanks to Satish (Gopalkrishnan), we were able to try out this option and obviously, we are happy to have won here. The route and terrain were just perfect,” said Sujith.

Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and his Cabinet colleagues presided over the prize-distribution function.

The results (provisional):

Overall/Pro-Expert: Satish Gopalkrishnan / Savera D’Souza (Team Tata Motors Full Throttle) 1 (46 secs); Nirmalya Das / Chandan Das (Pvt) 2 (00:00:53); Jagmeet Gill / Yogesh Gupta (Volkswagen) 3 (00:01:01).

Pro-Stock: Chidananda Murthy / Sujith Kumar BS (Team Tata Motors Full Throttle) 1 (00:01:12); Kanth Gowda / Kuriakose Elias Parel (Team Tata Motors Full Throttle) 2 (00:01:18); MD Ganesh Moorthy / M Prakash (Pvt) 3 (00:02:05).

Novice: Nitoka Chopy / Philip Lam (Team Tata Motors Full Throttle) 1 (00:14:19); Tokavi Hojo / Adu Keditsu (Pvt) 2 (00:16:05); S Moa / Y Temong (Pvt) 3 (00:21:58).

Best Institution: Team Tata Motors Full Throttle. Maximum Zero In Rally: Tstote Therie (Team Tata Motors Full Throttle).

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About JK Tyre Motorsport

JK Tyre has always been closely associated with the world of sports. Almost three decades back the company laid down a long term and sustained approach to promote Motorsport. Participating in this form of the sport has helped the company in continuously updating its products to meet the challenges of gruelling Indian conditions. The sport at that time in India was perceived for elite but JK Tyre took upon itself to package and redesign the sport to suit the masses. The company not only made the sport affordable but also equivalent to International operating standards. JK Tyre’s foray into Motorsport was a well thought out strategic decision to not only use and develop this virgin branding platform but also to realize the dreams of making India a force in the field of motor sport.

In 2011, the company acquired the Formula BMW Series and rechristened it as the JK Racing Asia Series (JKRAS). With this acquisition, JK Tyre created history in Indian Motorsport by becoming the first Indian company to acquire an FIA accredited series. The series has to its credit of producing as many as six of the current Formula One drivers, including reigning three- time champion Sebastian Vettel. By taking over the series, JK Tyre promises to utilize it as a platform to encourage and support the world’s best racing drivers and promote India as one of Asia’s motorsport capitals. Thus, JK Tyre has conquered two steps in the motorsport program where the new racing aspirants first establish themselves in India, then graduate to Asian level i.e. to Formula BMW, which is now JKRAS and then they move to higher levels of racing. JK Tyre now stands closer to achieving its mission of bringing world-class motorsport to the Indian masses.

The Racing and Karting programme by JK Tyre has been the breeding ground for the country’s motorsport talents like Narain Karthikeyan, Armaan Ebrahim, Karun Chandhok, Aditya Patel and other emerging talents.