DARJEELING: After three days of steering through some of the toughest terrains of north Bengal, the extraordinary incident of a driver needing impromptu treatment after suffering a cardiac attack and participants making post-rally protests over some decisions delaying the announcement of the results, the eighth edition of Himalayan Drive came to an end here on Sunday with the usual established order. The Haldia-based Seikh Ajgar Ali and his co-driver Mohammed Musthafa held aloft the winner's trophy again, but this time the triumph came with an added award.
With the Just Sportz-organised Himalayan Drive-8 being elevated as the grand finale for the JK Tyre Indian National Regulatory Run Championship (INRRC) 2021, Ajgar and Musthafa thus also became the new national champion --- their second such title after 2016.
"This is my fourth consecutive Himalayan Drive title. But winning the national title again is really an icing on the cake. Because this has been more challenging than the 2016 one. Here leaders from different zones took part and the competition was quite intense," he told TOI after the prize distribution ceremony, which had to be held twice on Sunday because of the lengthy process in re-scrutinizing the results following the protests.
"I had some issues with some points and penalties slapped on us. It looked like some decisions were meant to be made to help others win the championship," said veteran driver Subir Roy, who came third with his co-driver Nirav Mehta and skipped the first round of the prize distribution ceremony, held at the Bhanu Bhavan.
"We received three protests. However, despite some procedural discrepancy in the process of lodging the protests, we decided to hear the cases of the aggrieved participants and in the end, the stewards decided to stick to the original results," Tamal Ghosal, chairman of the FMSCI Regularity Run Commission, said. "We have remained transparent in our process of arriving at the decisions. If some participants still feel aggrieved, they can move the Indian Motor Sports Appeal Court (in Chennai)," he added.
The team of Sk. Aniruddha --- who happens to be Ajgar's brother --- and his navigator Raj Kumar Mundra pipped Roy and his team to the second place in the national championship.
The team of Jit Mitra and Dinky Varghese triumphed in the Adventure category while Sheena Sabharwal and Trupti Gupta finished first in the Ladies Cup and Bengal's mother-daughter combo of Nilasha Das and Ipsita Das came third.
The Himalayan Drive-8 lived up to its expectations after hitting the ground following a gap of two years because of the pandemic, but for Ranchi-based driver Rohit Kashyap, it turned out to be an unusual experience. While driving through a tough terrain near Gorubathan in Dooars on Saturday, Kashyap suffered a cardiac arrest and fell on the steering. Sensing the sanger, his co-driver Shailendra Singh did the immediate CPR steps with cardiac massage, thus managing to revive him. Shailendra then drove the car down to a nearby hospital where Kashyap received further treatment. The latter was then shifted to a Siliguri hospital and his conditions are now reported to be stable.
"The case of Rohit could have been fatal but luckily his co-driver reacted quickly and he received immediate treatment," Dhiman Banerjee, a doctor of the recovery team, said.
Eminent dignitaries like GOC of the Sukhna-headquartered 33 Corps, Lieutenant General Tarun Kumar Aich, 123 Mountain Brigade Commander Vikas Batra former Darjeeling MLA Amar Singh Rai and Darjeeling Municipality chairman Ritesh Portel were present during the prize distribution ceremony.
