Deepa Damodaran defends JK Rally to the Valley title

MUMBAI: Seasoned rallyist Deepa Damodaran reinforced her reputation as TSD queen of Western India by successfully defending her JK Tyre Women’s Rally to the Valley title here on Sunday.

Ably assisted by her navigator Priyanka Videsh, Deepa managed to log a bare minimum three penalty points to annex the crown and win a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 once again.

The Rally created a record of sorts even before it got flagged off, becoming arguably one of the biggest rallies ‘for women, by women’ in the world.

The event, conceived, planned and executed all the way by women, saw over 600 ladies compete in close to 130 cars to propagate women’s empowerment.

The ladies started from Worli, touched a number of landmarks of the city, including Century Bazaar, the Sidhi Vinayak temple, Shivaji Park, Dadar Plaza, Eastern Express Highway and Vashi before culminating at Amby Valley.

Pradnya Chavarkar (with Parul Shah) and Vinisha Sawant (with Ayoshmita Biswas) claimed the second and third prizes with five and six penalty points respectively. 

“It was a great moment for all of us involved in motorsports to see women running the show all by themselves,” Sanjay Sharma, Head-Motorsports, JK Tyre & Industries said.