A number of offroading enthusiasts in the region who own Mahindra vehicles today participated in the 54th Great Mahindra Escape, a non-competitive offroad event held near Panchkula. Over the 42-km stretch, the offroaders drove on the Ghaggar river bed, went down and came up several rocky stretches, revved up a lot of dust, and in short had loads of fun. The route for the event was prepared by Hari Singh, a former motorsport champion of the country.

Gurprit Gill, president of the Chandigarh-based 4x4 Club, joked that while the event was a constant high and ended by about 2 pm, by evening he could feel his body parts taking turns to hurt. “It was a good offroading adventure. We went up and down the Ghaggar and crossed the river four-five times. The two-wheel drives kept getting stuck, and winching them out was part of the fun,” he grinned.

Among those who did a good winching job was Zoravar Singh, a young member of the 4X4 Club. The stretch from Billa village to Belwala village, which the offroaders did on the river bed, the two-wheel drives were not able to maneuver the narrow, sandy gorge. Soon enough, the first vehicle in the convoy, which was a two-wheel drive, drove into a sand wall in the gorge and could not go further.

Zoravar was about seven-eight vehicles behind. With all the vehicles stalled, Zoravar revved up his jeep up the wall of the gorge and came down adjacent to the vehicle that was stuck, and hauled it out. “Further up this sandy stretch, more and more two-wheel drives got stuck and were winched out. We winched a two-wheel drive almost a km along the route, because it got stuck so often,” said the 24-year-old.

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