NEW DELHE: Rod Millen of New Zealand made a fine debut by winning the tenth Himalayan car rally.
The US. based millen, 38, drove his Mazda on to the finish ramp at Rajpath here Wednesday, covering the 1600km grueling rally with just one hour, 40:37 minutes provisional penalties.
It was a challenging and very Deman dingRally, said Millen soon after the win which also gave him the Asia Pacific Rally championship title.
With Cover driver 28yearold Tony Sir combe, Millen had led the rally right from the second leg after defending champion Kenjiro Shinozuka of Japan blew his hopes of a hattrick with his Gasket.
The Aucklander, who is now based in California, said he would like to return to the rally next time but was currently pre~ paring for the U.S. championship in Seattle next weekend.
Austrian Georg Fisher with Thomas Zeltner in Audi Quattro 200 finished second overall with 1:53:02 penalties while Indians Kulbir Singh Chauhan and Sukhi Sekhon were third overall with 3:43:48 ina Maruti Gypsy.
In all 40, out of the 62 cars that were flagged off on Sunday, completed the four leg rally. Badri Krishnamurty and Jayesh Desai in Maruti Gypsy were timebarred.
Fisher, 2 40yearold businessman from Vienna, thought the Rally was” very tough and very hard” specially up in the mountains where the route was ¢twisty and narrow’ (PTI)
Among the Indian competitors, Maj. Chauhan and Capt. Sekhon did very well to be abead throughout, for overall third. Sqd. Lar Koka Rahul Raoand FLT. Off, Abhijeet Sarmandal were provisionally fourth with 3:35:34 and Rajendra Rand hawa followed them.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 17, 1989
