75 teams across 3 categories to participate in The Rainforest Challenge India 2025

The 11th edition of the Rainforest Challenge (RFC) India, which is the biggest and the toughest off-road motorsport event in the country, will be held in Goa from July 28 to August 3, 2025. After 10 years of being a hardcore, extreme off-road motorsport event, the event organizer Cougar Motorsport has announced two new categories this year to make RFC India a more inclusive event for the 4X4 community. Therefore, for the first time in its history, the ‘4X4 Modified’ and ‘4X4 Stock’ categories have been added to the competition in addition to the pre-existing ‘4X4 Extreme’ category. 

Around 75 teams, consisting of some of the best off-roaders from across India, are expected to compete in RFC India 2025 across the 3 categories. Entries for this year opened in March and over 50 teams have registered for the event so far, including teams from offroad clubs such as Manabhum Offroaders Club of Arunachal (MOCA), Jeepers of Bangalore, Offbeat Automotives Bangalore, Torque Monsters Uttarakhand, Satara Offroaders and Sahyadri Offroaders.

RFC India was launched by Cougar Motorsport in 2014 as the India Chapter of the Rainforest Challenge of Malaysia, which is ranked among the top 10 toughest motor races and top 5 toughest off-road races in the world and has regional chapters in over 30 countries worldwide. Over the years, RFC India has emerged as the most prestigious off-road motorsport competition in India. 

Luis J.A. Wee, the Founder of the Rainforest Challenge, will attend the event this year for the first time after the pandemic. Expressing his excitement about the upcoming event and the new categories that have been added, Mr Wee said, “Uplifting the standards of Indian 4x4 offroad motorsport at par with global standards and the creation of champions, stars and heroes of the 4x4 extreme racing style of the world-renowned Rainforest Challenge was the power of the first decade of RFC India. Now comes 2025, the start of the second decade with a ‘Reimagined’ RFC India, where even more upcoming stars will be made at par with 4x4 warriors from the super league of RFC Global Series. See you all there!”

According to Mr Ashish Gupta, Founder & Director of Cougar Motorsport, “I am as excited as I was in 2014, the inception year of RFC India, with the larger and more inclusive format. We are preparing for the massive challenge of running 3 competitions concurrently and looking forward to seeing ambitious offroaders accept the gauntlet. RFC India now provides an unparalleled international platform for participants with varying investments in vehicle preparation to compete and fuel their aspirations to evolve to higher levels of the competition. RFC India 2025 will showcase new talent as well as purpose built extreme competition vehicles to production spec Jeep Wrangler, Maruti Jimny and Mahindra Thar vehicles. We are now also able to provide higher visibility and amplification to sponsors and partners, and welcome them to leverage the event for their products and services.”

RFC India is considered the toughest off-road motorsport event in India as it tests competitors over the course of a week on several parameters such as driving and vehicle recovery skills, physical and mental resilience as well as capability to work well as a team under extreme off-road conditions. 

This year, the ‘4X4 Extreme’ category will start on 28th July with the vehicle scrutiny and driver’s briefing. This will be followed by the competition from 29th July to 3rd August where each team, consisting of a driver and a co-driver, will undertake 26 challenges, referred to as Special Stages (SS). The competitors for the ‘4X4 Modified’ category will undergo the vehicle scrutiny on 29th July and will compete in 20 SS from 30th July to 3rd August. The vehicle scrutiny for the ‘4X4 Stock’ category will take place on 30th July, followed by 14 SS from 31st July to 3rd August. The winners of all the categories will be announced on 3rd August wherein the teams with the maximum points at the end of all the SS in their category of the competition will be announced the RFC India 2025 Champions of their respective category.