Rainforest Challenge 2018: Report 5

• At the end of Day 5, Jagat Nanjappa increased his lead on top of the scoreboard.

• Defending champions Gurmeet Virdi/Kirpal Singh Tung maintained their second position.

The day 5 of the week-long 2018 Rain Forest Challenge moved to the dense forest of Green Hills Agri Farm in Maina, Quepem. After the completion of Stage 18 to 21, Jagat Nanjappa and his co-driver Chetan Changappa of Coorg retained their top position on the leader board with 1614 points out of a maximum of 2100. The SS18 and SS19 proved to be a walk in the park for them in car no.102, as they scored a straight 100 points in both the stages.

Meanwhile, the defending champions, Gurmeet Virdi and co-driver Kirpal Singh Tung from Chandigarh, have also maintained their position at the second place in the points table with a score of 1490 points. At the third position is the team G.O.A. Fairmont, driven by Mervyn Lim and co-driver Alex Tan. The Malaysian driver helped the team climb up a spot from the previous day standing with a score of 1411 points. Trailing in their wake were Chandigarh’s Sanbir Singh Dhaliwal and co-driver Gurpartap Singh Sandhu (1366 points). RFC debutant, Chow Ujjal Namshum with his co-driver Inpeng Mein managed to maintain their fifth position scoring 1324 points.

Current leader, Jagat Nanjapp, of Coorg’s V5 Offroaders, commenting on the scorecard, said, “The competition over the last couple of days was defined by two things - participants’ luck and the mercy of the rain gods. While some people got to do certain stages in day time, others got to do them at night. We ourselves didn’t expect to be in the lead. It’s difficult to hold on to the ladder now that we have reached here, but we plan to somehow cling on to it.”

Representing Gerrari Offroaders Chandigarh, the two-time defending champion Gurmeet in car no.102, was second fastest in two of the stages. And because of which, it seemed likely that they might narrow the gap on the points table. However, a DNF in SS20 caused a huge impact on their final score and there’s still a considerable gap between them and the leader. If Gurmeet manages to close the gap in the next four stages, we could see a hat-trick in the fifth edition of the Rain Forest Challenge. The next stages - SS 22 to 25 - will be held at the same location on Friday. The competition will then move to the Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat in Dona Paula for the finale on 28 July.