Kerala will once again have some decent rallying, after a two-year gap and that too without any sponsors. While the Kerala Auto Sports Club (KASC) is putting its best foot forward to conduct the newly christened Heera Rally 07, the opening round of this seven-round Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) begins with a field below the country’s best.

The pull-out of Team JK Tyre simply means that there would be no on-course rivalry between them and arch-rivals Team MRF—better known as the Yellows and Reds— that dominated talk in every rally they contested in.

This pull-out also means that defending INRC champion Naren Kumar and seasoned Vikram Mathias will miss a round.

In the absence of Naren and Vikram, the all Team MRF field barring the privateers would have last year’s runner-up Gaurav Gill and third placed finisher Karandip Singh begin firm favourites among the 30 teams entered.

Meanwhile, Gill, the new entrant into Team MRF, will be driving the 2000cc Mitsubishi Cedia and will have veteran Moosa Sherif as his navigator, while Karandip Singh will be driving a Ford Fiesta, partnered by Jaidas Menon.

Other teams in fray for the overall championship are Lohit Urs/Pradeep Kumar, the experienced Arjun Balu/Kumar Ramaswamy and Arjun Rao Aroor/Satish Kumar.

According to Clerk of Course Sangeeth Kumar the rally will be run on tarmac and on nine special stages over two days, covering a competitive distance of 112.64 km. The transport stages total 284.04km, the total rally distance measuring 396.68 km.

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