As the JK Tyre Himalayan Drive 7 entered its final two stages, Delhis Gagan Sethi scripted a gallant fightback to move up to the third position here on Friday.
The JK Tyre Hornbill TSD Driver champion Gagan Sethi and co-driver Rajkumar Mundra, who were not in the reckoning after the initial stages, showed great precision and skill to make up for their opening day's loss and get back into the championship mix.
While there were a lot of unfortunate incidents with top contenders Pratick Sirkar (& co-driver Debashish Ghosh) and Ratan Pal (& co-driver Prasenjit Roy) dropping out of contention with DNFs, it was the two-defending champions Ali Asgar and his navigator Md. Musthafa who held on to their slender lead to keep their dream alive of completing a rare hat-trick.
Yogendra and his co-driver Nagarajan Thangaraj, who started their day in the second position, managed to hold on to that position, even narrowing down the lead and threatening the leaders.
With leg three of India's only multi-nation TSD (Time, Speed, Distance) from Paro (Bhutan) to Kalimpong being cancelled due to heavy snowfall, the drivers will head straight to Leg 4 which will be flagged-off from Jaigaon while the final leg will see the competitors traverse from Kalimpong to Siliguri.
--IANS
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