Thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you at the event. Hope to run into each other again.
Before I move on to the other tracks, Fazal Saab's pictures reminded me that no one has mentioned anything about the nitty gritty - the arrangements that made it such a great event.
As soon as the vehicles entered the venue there was a scrutiny conducted and vehicles were checked whether the tyres were MT or not, vehicles with AT/NDMS were allowed but HT were strictly but politely told to park to one side. Vehicles were checked to ensure that they had working seat belts. It was also ensured that all vehicles had a 'B' pillar, roll cage or at least a roll bar. If vehicles met these safety conditions they were passed and issued a slip which entitled them to registration and a competitor number. Scrutiny process was quick and efficient.
Registration consisted largely of signing a form, collecting competitor no., a delegate badge and a bag of goodies. Since there were as many as 4 queues, 2 for drivers and 2 for passengers, registration was done in a jiffy and people trooped off to tuck into the b'fast that was hot, not just warm. In fact, we were pleasantly surprised to see endless cups of tea & coffee being poured and the b'fast being served (for 2nd, 3rd helpings etc) right up to lunch time.
After B'fast was a short briefing and participants trooped off to their vehicles which were lined up in front of the 4 different tracks right after scrutiny.
The format of the event was simple enough, there were a total of 4 tracks. The time taken on tracks 1, 2 & 3 was timed with the driver/passenger operating the stop watch by themselves, this was quite easy as the entry and exit points to each track were close to each other and a marshal with the stopwatch stood between the two, either the driver or the passenger hopped out before crossing the start line and activated the stop watch, he then ran back got into the vehicle, shut the door (if present) and only then the vehicle could move, similarly after completing the track, either the driver or the passenger hopped out after the vehicle came to a complete stop and stopped the stop watch, noted the time and had it entered onto a time sheet and countersigned the time sheet. The aggregate time for all tracks would determine the winners.
Simple? Well, to make life interesting there were a few twists
1. If any vehicle starts before the passenger is fully seated and door closed, it would get a 2 minute penalty.
2. If the passenger (or driver) gets out before the vehicle comes to a full stop after the finish line, the vehicles is given a 2 minute penalty.
3. The track was clearly defined with cones / ribbon / tyres, if any vehicle touches any of them it got a 30 second penalty each time it touched / hit / crossed the markers.
4. If the vehicle does not finish a track or is rescued, he gets a DNF (did not finish).
Now on to track 2:
A diagram showing the plan of track 2.
A birds eye view of Track 2. The entry is at top left of the pic.
Above and below Nice shiny Xenon (well relatively).
Following is Sankidude in his Gurkha