For the past three years, the dominant figure and winner of the Xtreme Cars category has been homegrown Manali hero - the very modest and affable, Suresh Rana. The winner on bikes this year was English bike journalist, Damon I'Anson, who practically rode his Yamaha XT 660R from England to India in order to set an unassisted altitude record for a motorcycle and its rider. He accomplished this task about 100 feet above the Marsimek Pass (18,630 feet) in Ladakh only a few weeks before the Raid. He wasn't satisfied, however, until he showed about 30 of India's best and most strong willed riders, including last years Raid winner, as well as some of his own countrymen, his dust. You've got to hand it to him for accomplishing this feat, especially considering that he was also his own one-man service crew - although I think his toughest task came at the end of the Raid when he looked perplexed at how to carry his numerous trophies back to England.

For the Reliability Cars and SUV's, the roads are left open to other traffic with perhaps just a warning to the locals as they make their way through at a slightly saner pace in an effort to maintain their much more realistic average speed requirements. Mind you, while the Xtreme Cars are mandated to have roll cages and four point safety harnesses, which help to keep the participants in one piece in the event of a mishap, the Reliability Cars are more or less in stock trim.