National Car Rally in Chennai after seven years

Bangalore, Sep 4 (UNI) A 500 KM Motorsports Inc rally of the South- 2007 will be held in Chennai from September 21 to 23 in international stage rally format.

More than 30 teams will be participating in the three-day event to be a Candidate round for the Motorsports Association of India (MAI) run Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) 2008.

''We are planning to run a spectator friendly Super Special Stage in the city for which we would be getting permission from the government soon'' said Jaidas Menon, Director of Motorsports Inc, an organisation based here and running Motorsport events all over the country.

He said the 30 teams include Team MRF and Red Rooster Racing.

National Champion Rallyists Lohith Urs, Arjun Balu, Vikram Mathias, Girijashankar Joshi and Amritajit Ghosh are among the confirmed entries'', he added.

The Rally would feature the Super Special Stage on September 21, followed by two days of Stage Rallying. There will be about 100 Km of competitive stage as a dirt racing event.

Mitsubishi Motors and MRF Limited are the co-sponsors of the event while and Polk Audio, Methods, and Maayajal would support it.

The MAI would police the event and confirm whether the event is run as per National Rallying rules.

Mr Menon said Chennai city would be held in Chennai after a gap of seven years.

A National Champion co-driver, Menon would be assisted by another Champion co-driver Sujith Kumar, as the Clerk-of-the-Course (COC) for the event. ''Our goal is to get into the INRC next year and run an Asia Pacific Rally Championship round by 2010'', he added.

UNI