The biggest question mark before the start of the Raid this year was regarding the weather, and if the seemingly misaligned stars of the present would have an impact on the 10th Raid de Himalaya? The weather in the Himalayas is unpredictable at the best of times, but seemingly more so at the moment. A week prior to the start of the event, the rain and snow had been causing havoc in Himachal. But Vijay Parmar, who orchestrates the event and lives and breathes the Raid, is an influential man. And he was obviously able to establish links with the weather gods that were unleashing their fury in different parts of the country. While last year we were forced to quit the rally and head back from the Patseo Army Camp on the road to Leh on Day Four, this year the weather turned out to be unexpectedly spectacular.
The next biggest concern was the terrain and its condition. Last year was rough, and Leg 3 resulted in a broken radiator among a number of other things on our car. This year, since the terrain had already been lashed with rain and snow, it was anybody’s guess what to expect. To prevent the front of the car from disintegrating once again this year, we cut out sections of the front fenders (where they meet the doors), and replaced them with thicker 16-gauge steel. We also added additional braces to further strengthen the front end.
The biggest concern on the Raid is mechanical reliability resulting from the absolute beating the car takes, and the prolonged periods for which it’s expected to endure such abuse. And this makes judging the balance between going for quick times and saving the car an ongoing struggle. Discretion may be the better part of valour, but that becomes very hard to rationalize to yourself when you end up towards the lower half of the time sheets at the end of a leg.
My first taste of the Raid was in 2006. I got to Shimla in the autoXchange Gypsy in 2006 without a clue of what to expect, with literally no experience of the terrain or conditions. My mechanic was attempting to lead the service crew and navigate at the same time since no one else was foolish enough to be seated on the passenger seat during my first attempt. Luckily, we were able to keep the car on all four wheels and stay out of trouble for the most part. While there probably were some 3,000 foot drops as we had been warned, I mostly choose not to look down while attempting to keep the car on the mountain and cover ground as quickly as we could. In the end, we finished in a reasonable sixth overall and third in class (T2). Although we were denied fifth place, which is where we really finished (or so we believed), it wasn’t too bad for our first attempt. We were even awarded the NL Chaudhry and Jaswinder Pal Memorial trophy for our efforts through what was a fantastic learning experience.
In 2007, like all the other competitors, we weren’t so lucky as the weather played spoilsport and ended the rally prematurely. The snow started as early as Day Two of the rally and eventually a storm forced us to turn back from the Patseo Army camp on Day Four. Our position on the day was somewhere towards the bottom of the time sheets thanks to a puncture on an obstacle course masquerading as a rally stage on Day One – not to mention a jack that was hesitant to perform its intended function. Following this, on Day Three, just as we started to make up some ground and overtake a few competitors, we were greeted by the unpleasant aroma of coolant spewing from the radiator. The terrain had left our engine mountings all but useless, which meant that the engine block collided with the radiator in front of it and caused it to hemorrhage its contents on the unforgiving Himalayan landscape. This led to frequent and agonizing stops for water wherever we could find it. Suffice to say, we were hoping for better luck and better conditions on our third attempt this year.
Calling the Raid-de-Himalaya just a car rally would be a grave injustice – it’s a life experience. There’s very little that compares with driving through the More Plains with no one and nothing in sight for as far as the eye can see. Or, for that matter, racing through a special stage of incredible and challenging driving roads to find yourself literally at lands end on the shores of the Pangon Tso at 13,900 feet. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not all breathtaking views and brilliant landscapes – perhaps in retrospect. In reality, the Raid is about finding an elusive mix of speed and endurance on extremely harsh terrain the likes of which you can’t even imagine until you’re physically upon it, and that’s to say nothing of the bitterly cold early morning starts.
While the Raid does test your driving and navigation skills on a mix of varied terrain ranging from smooth and flowing tarmac to a moonscape of the most rough and rocky terrain this side of the solar system, more importantly, its also a true test of your ability and resolve in the most transparent way possible. But best of all, it’s an annual once-in-a-lifetime experience.
That being said, if we were hoping for better luck in 2008, we needn’t have bothered. For all practical purposes, the Raid for us lasted a very anti-climatic 28 kilometers. We actually covered almost 400 before being stranded on the side of the road, but the majority of those kilometers were on tedious transport sections. On Day 1 of the rally, 2 stages out of 4 had to be cancelled because of the road being blocked by landslides following torrential rain the week before. Despite the use of two earth movers, the organisers were unable to clear the passage. Day 1, then, which goes from Shimla to Manali through the forest and some apple orchards before crossing the dreaded Jalori Pass, was left with only two competitive stages – the first being 22 kilometers, and the second 28.
The first 22 kilometer stage was far too rough to be called a rally stage. It was more of a case of who can break their car the fastest. As it turned out, a Skoda Octavia RS brilliantly prepared by Atikur Rahman from Guwahati was the first casualty as his car lasted all but 3 kilometers before his clutch gave way. Two other Raid stalwarts, and perhaps the only two who could have really given now five-time Raid winner and homegrown Manali hero, Suresh Rana, a run for his money, Sunny Sidhu and Sandeep Sharma, also retired after the first stage. Sunny’s 1.6 liter Baleno engine block, retrofitted in the Gypsy, couldn’t quite take the abuse (although Rana who was also using a Baleno engine fared just fine), while Sandy’s self engineered turbocharger couldn’t quite take the heat either. In our case, all we could have hoped for was to keep the car on the road and in one piece, which we did thankfully.
As bad as the fist stage was, the second stage well and truly made up for it. It was a spectacular stage through the forests above Shimla. It had a reasonable surface and fast flowing corners that allowed us to really get into a rhythm, and reminded us of just why we love the mountains and the Raid so much. It was truly a brilliant stage, and thankfully so, because that’s practically the extent of all the rallying for the autoXchange Gypsy in 2008.
We did stop for directions at a fork in the road on one occasion, but other than that had a trouble free run through the majority of the stage – until the last few kilometers that is, when we started to leak brake fluid from one of the wheel cylinders. While the brake pedal did get substantially less responsive, we managed to make it to the end of the stage with the brakes still somewhat intact, and also set a reasonable time in the process – leaving us in 7th position overall and within 30 seconds of the two Army cars ahead of us. We were quicker than both on the second stage and hoped to continue that trend going into the second day – a 78 kilometer run through the Kunzum Pass leading to Kaza in the Spiti valley, which is incidentally the same stage where we almost retired with overheating problems the previous year.
At the end of day 1, Suresh Rana had laid down his dominance of the Raid yet again and was already comfortably in the lead. Sanket Shanbhag from Satara, near Pune, the 2006 Gypsy cup champion of the INRC (Indian National Rally Championship), was in second with a tightly packed field behind him. We started the transport from Manali to Gramphoo, just past the Rohtang pass, the next morning with reasonably high hopes for the stage ahead – hopes that, unfortunately, evaporated not long after. The road on the way up to Rohtang very much bore fresh scars from the lashing it had undoubtedly endured until only a few days before, and was consequently much rougher than years past. A little more than half way up to Rohtang, the car, without warning and any drama at all, simply lost power and coasted to a halt.
Like two years prior, my navigator was also my mechanic, so I felt fairly confident that we’d soon be on our way once again. But it wasn’t to be. After inspecting every fuse, circuit and what felt like every wire in the car, we just couldn’t get it started again. We even replaced the fuel pump. And when that didn’t work, connected it directly to a switch on the dash, which was originally meant for the pump of the auxiliary fuel tank. After what seemed like an eternity, the car finally gave us some hope by roaring back to life but it was short lived to say the least. We made it only about 100 meters before the fuel pump burned itself out – it was running on overtime since it was no longer being regulated by the car’s ECU (Electronic Control Unit). There was little we could do but wait on the side of the road until our service car, which was waiting before the stage start, returned and towed us back to Manali. At the risk of sounding mellow dramatic, you don’t realize how much something like competing in the Raid means to you until it’s taken away in the blink of an eye – perhaps because it then strikes you of just how much time and effort’s been wasted. Had we been able to carry on, we would have checked in late at the stage start and been out of contention, but at least we would still have been in the competition. Heading back after just one day was a bitter blow, but one that the world of rallying teaches you all too often – especially if you have my kind of luck.
A little under 12 hours after we first ground to a halt, we had the car up on a lift at a Maruti service center in Manali. What we thought was a terminal ECU fault turned out to be nothing more than a cut fuel pump wire – a 30 second fix if we had caught it first thing in the morning. As luck would have it, the severed wire was hidden out of sight between a metal plate and the body.
In a short lived Sherlock Holmes moment, it all fell into place in a matter of seconds. A mechanic in Delhi did some welding at the rear prior to the start of the event. In the process, he burned the wires that run the length of the car – one of which is the critical fuel pump wire in question. He then taped them together and hid them between the plate he welded in and the body of the car so it would go unnoticed. Adding insult to injury, not only did he conceal his mistake, but he was stingy with the tape as well. It just goes to show that, on an event like the Raid, even the smallest negligence can leave you stranded on the side of the road contemplating the true meaning of phrases like ‘C’est la vie.’
Needless to say, the Raid didn’t miss us much, and, thankfully, went on in brilliant weather all the way to its conclusion in Leh one week later (going to the beautiful Komik monastery above Kaza on the following day, and then back through the Kunzum pass to the Patseo Army camp, and onwards to Leh, followed by a quick dash to Kargil and back). The very modest and affable Suresh Rana claimed his fifth Raid victory in as many years – an absolutely unimaginable feat. Sanket Sanbagh wasn’t as lucky however. The timing sheet at the end of each Leg showed him comfortably in second position till the very end – well, painfully for him, almost the very end. As it turned out, there was a computer glitch in the timing that was only rectified after the end of the rally – leaving him more than a little surprised and disappointed all the way in fifth place. During the last few legs, he felt he had a comfortable lead in second and eased off while his competitors behind pushed till the very end and eventually ended up in front. Captain Amarinder S. Brar made up for time lost on Day 1 and clawed his way back up to second. Harprit Singh Bawa from Chandigarh, who’s always in contention, also found himself promoted to third place overall.
The organisers of the Raid do a fantastic job, and it’s easy to pass judgment and be critical without being mindful of the extent of preparation and effort that goes into creating an event like the Raid. With that said, the participants also put a lot into the event, both in terms of time and money, and when it all goes wrong in the end, like it did with Sanket, you can’t help but feel a little cheated. Then again, as any veteran will tell you, that’s very much a part of the ups and downs of motorsport.
They say luck favors the brave – well I musn’t be very brave in that case. Either that or I’m just a bad person (or was in my last life). Any way you look at it or attempt to rationalize it, my rally career, so to speak, has been nothing if not a chronicle of bad luck. Allow me to elaborate:
Let’s start with my first rally – the 2004 Rally of the North (Delhi round of the INRC – Indian National Rally Championship). I was driving an old rally-hardened (read: beaten) Esteem. In our first ever rally stage, we did a respectable job and were quicker than most of the other drivers who had been competing in the Rally Star Cup for the entire season (just to put that into perspective – there were only a handful of other cars). In the subsequent transport, on the way to the next competitive stage, almost on cue, the car initialized its break-down sequence – although it began with just a flat tire, which was no fault of the car itself. We managed only one more attempt at being quick before the brakes failed, the exhaust fell off, and then the engine block broke altogether – leaving the starter motor sitting on the sump guard below, and us stranded on the side of the road.
My second rally was the 2005 Rally of the North. We bought and prepared a Gypsy about 10 days before the event and managed only a few hundred kilometers in the car before the start. Prior to the rally, I was amazed that anyone would even attempt to drive such a vehicle quickly. I was sure that we’d end up in a ditch, upside down. Thankfully my luck isn’t quite that bad and once we were underway, I quickly got used to the car – not before starting the first stage in 4W High (High range of the four-wheel drive gearbox, which consist of 4W High and 4W Low), and scaring myself silly.
We finished the day 5th out of 16 Gypsy’s – not quite as well as I was hoping but respectable once again. However, the next day we found that we had been demoted to 7th resulting from a one minute penalty handed to us on the second last stage of Day 1. While waiting to enter time control of that particular stage, I thought the official waved us in about 10 second before our due in-time – perhaps he was just swatting a fly. By the time we reached him we were on time anyway, but were nonetheless handed a one minute penalty for being over eager and inexperienced. On Day 2, after having been demoted two places, we managed to move back up to sixth – despite attempting 4-High once again in a last ditch effort on the final stage, which nearly left us facing the wrong way while attempting to negotiate a hairpin bend.
The next rally was the reason for buying the Gypsy in the first place – the 2006 Raid de Himalaya. The rally itself was largely trouble and incident free, leading me to believe that we finally had luck on our side. I was fooling myself no doubt, and was proven wrong yet again when the final results were published – we had been demoted from 5th overall and 2nd in class to 6th and 3rd. On the final leg of the rally, we had a 45 second lead going into the last 46 kilometer stage that was to traverse the Tanglang La (Pass) at 17,500 feet. Trying to maintain a lead of 45 seconds over 46 kilometers, especially when you know that the other crew is going to be pushing as much as possible, isn’t easy to say the least. Nevertheless, we drove our hearts out and managed near identical times. If memory serves me correctly, we were only about 15 seconds apart, which meant that we were able to retain our lead and keep our position. There were a few occasions when we were on the edge of control on certain downhill and bumpy sections – I’ve got to take my hat off to the other team, who must have experienced much of the same as well.
When the final results were declared, we were dumbfounded to find the positions had been reversed and we had been demoted. After a very close and hard fought battle that lasted till the absolute last second of the final 46 kilometer rally stage of this 2,000 kilometer roller coaster ride, we were disappointed to say the least.
Seven days after an incident that took place on the first day of the rally, the competitor who we had been battling with had been granted one minute dead time, which means they had one minute deducted from their final result – allowing them to conveniently move up one position at our expense. When we tried to make a case for ourselves regarding a similar incident that took place with us on the second stage on Day 1 of the rally, which had thus far gone unmentioned because we didn’t feel that need to bring it up, we weren’t greeted with quite the same level of understanding.
On that particular stage, we were at the back of a train of cars that had caught but couldn’t get past a slower car. This was a four car train with us at the back. The dust being thrown up by the cars in front made it impossible to see anything and we had to drop back slightly. The second car in the train was obviously also battling with visibility when they clipped the mountainside and flipped their Gypsy onto its side. The car in front of us didn’t bother waiting around and managed to drive past. But we, on the other hand, stopped to make sure that the crew was okay. My navigator jumped out and headed to the stricken Gypsy. I headed in the opposite direction to stop the next car, which was fast approaching. On getting an all-okay signal from the navigator of the car now on its side, who was attempting to climb out of the drivers’ side window, we jumped back in the car, strapped ourselves in and carried on. The entire incident must have cost us about two minutes. And while the car behind, who ended up finishing ahead in the final results, corroborated our story, the crew of the car that flipped denied the fact that we even stopped at all – not only that, but to rub salt in our wounds, the driver even insinuated later that we had fabricated the story to gain an advantage. Why? Your guess is as good as mine – perhaps they were in shock and don’t remember, perhaps they didn’t want to believe that an incident involving their car held up traffic – who knows, all I know is that we were dropped down a place when the final results were issued.
Our next rally was the Desert Storm in 2007. Despite having a GPS on board, we got lost about a half-dozen times. Nevertheless, we would still have been in contention but in the process of getting lost, on one particular occasion, we missed a passage control where you’re required to stop and get your time card stamped. As a result, we were handed a 30 minute penalty for good measure. In fact, our GPS track shows that we drove right past the passage control and carried on straight instead of going right. In fact, I think the official even saw us drive past but couldn’t get our attention. This excursion cost us about 10 minutes as we attempted some mountain climbing to get back on track. By this point, of course, we were past the passage control and couldn’t go back against rally traffic to get our time card stamped. We explained all of this to the officials and even showed them our GPS track. And while they were understanding, even sympathetic, some other cars had also missed the same passage control and the penalty enforced had to be uniform for everyone. Following this, we were well and truly out of contention but the GPS finally came to some use as we set the fastest time on the last stage of the rally, and were hoping to carry this momentum into the next event – the 2007 Raid de Himalaya. If you’ve already read the main article, you’ll know that things unfortunately haven’t got much better since – neither in 2007 nor 2008. 2009 perhaps…
