It was the second title for Dhruva as his previous was in 2018 and Ilyas was the fastest driver as he missed the second crown.
Dhruva was the winner of the 3rd Mysuru Gravel Fest, the event which came back to light after a gap of 4 years and became the first fest post covid, the benchmark event had above 170 entries from 9 different classes including the ten from Apex class. The event organised by ASCOM is an annual event which was part of the Mysuru Dasara sports activities.
Indian Open:
Younus Ilyas from Kollam had improved on his previous timing he clocked it in 2min 20.126 with a very clean run apart from winning the class he was the fastest driver here on, Chetan Shivram in spite of improving on his own timing than the previous class had to finish in second position with less than a second difference, Syed Salman from Mysuru was slower by .290th of a second a finished third. Pragathi B Gowda from Bengaluru with more than a two seconds difference settled for fourth, Philippos Matthai who was sharing the car with Wadia was in fifth with a further difference of less than a second, Ritesh Guttedar from Bengaluru with less than a second difference finished sixth, Nikhil J also from Bengaluru with half a second difference was seventh. Moin Pasha from Bengaluru, Ruthvik M Gowda from Mysuru and Dhruva Chandrashekar from Bengaluru finished in 8th, 9th and 10th position respectively.
1401 to 1650cc class: This class was most attractive as it had rally car in action, Chetan Shivram from Bengaluru was the fastest with a time of 2min 21.777sec, Younus Ilyas from Kollam with less than three seconds difference finished second, Syed Salman a localite with further less than three seconds difference managed to complete the podium. Thimmaiah Den also a localite with less than a second difference on Salman settled for fourth position, Pragathi Gowda from Bengaluru with .500th of a second difference was fifth. Harkrishan Wadia from Delhi driving a Honda City iVetc finished sixth with .700th of a second difference, localite Ruthvik M Gowda with a narrowest margin of .0160th of a second was seventh and Jenu K Johnson also a localite was in eighth with over a second difference, Sumesh from Kochi and Ravi Kiran from Mysuru finished in ninth and tenth position.
ASCOM open:
Younus Ilyas from Kollam improved with over one second on his own timing to be the fastest he clocked 2min 18.897sec to win the class, localite Syed Salman was over two seconds slower to secure second position and Harkrishan Wadia who had just won the INRC round at Coorg finished third with less than .100th of a second difference. Philippos Matthai from New Delhi with over a second difference missed the podium to settle for fourth position, Dhruva ChandraShekar from Bengaluru with less than a second difference was fifth, Pragathi Gowda from Bengaluru with less than a second difference finished behind him in sixth position, Keerthan Kuttappa from Virajpet was seventh with further 2sec difference, while Ritesh Guttedar from Bengaluru and Nikeetaa Takkale from Pune finished in the same second as Keerthan in eighth and ninth position, Abhin R Rai winner of 1101 to 1450cc class finished in tenth position.
Apex class:
The most prestigious class of the event which had a cash prize of 2lakhs and the top ten fastest drivers were selected to run in this class. Dhruva Chandrashekar from Bengaluru was the winner with a timing of 2min 19.340sec and he stands to win the cash prize of Rs. 2lakhs. Syed Salman also improved on his own timing but was about .800th of a second slower and had to settle for second, Younus Ilyas the fastest driver of the event had to settle for third as he was further one second slower in this class. Harkrishan Wadia from Delhi missed the podium with a .500th of a second difference and settled for fourth, Pragathi B Gowda from Bengaluru was the fifth fastest in the class with a difference of over .500th of a second, Philippos Matthai from New Delhi finished within the same second with a difference of over .200th of a second he stood sixth, remaining four positions in the top ten was bagged by Bengaluru drivers as Nikhil with over a second difference finished seventh and Moin Pasha finished in eighth with a difference of over two seconds, Chetan Shivram with over a second difference was ninth and Ritesh Guttedar managed to finish in tenth after a topple and rejoining.
Upto 1100cc class:
Virajpet's Mandanna MP known as Suraj driving a Maruti Alto clocked the twin track in 2min 35.152sec to win the class, Bruhath Kembhathmakki from Mudigere was slower by over three seconds to settle for second position, Prakash R from Mudigere with .150th of a second difference was third. Shafeeque Ahamed from Virajpet missed the podium with over .200th of a second and finished fourth, Akash Aradhya from Mysuru was just behind him in fifth with less than .200th of a second difference. Manjunath K from Mysuru was sixth, Azweer from Mudigere was seventh, as Sharif MK from Kodagu, Lokesh Kumar Jain from Mudigere and Rohit RS from Mysuru finished in 8th,9th and 10th position respectively.
1101 to 1400cc class:
Abhin R Rai from Madikeri brought in his rallying skills into the fast flowing track, this time driving a Maruti Esteem was the fastest in the class with a time of 2min 29.500sec, Mohanraj GP from Bengaluru finished in second position with over 2sec difference, Jenu K Johnson from Mysuru and Arvind Dheerendra from Bengaluru finished within the same second and had to finish in third and fourth position, Arjun lost his podium with a mere .090th of a second difference. Ravi Kiran Gowda from Mysuru and Athul Thomas from Kothamangala finished in fifth and sixth position with a difference of .050th of a second difference with each other. Arif Khan and Moin Pasha both from Bengaluru finished a very close seventh and eighth position. Ismail Khan from Bengaluru and Ithihas from Mysuru finished in ninth and tenth position.
Ladies class:
Pragathi Gowda from Bengaluru driving a Volkswagen polo clocked 2min 24.489sec to lead the category, Nikeetaa Takkale from Pune who is currently leading the ladies class in INRC driving a Volkswagen polo 1.6 with over 11sec difference finished second, Tarushi Vikram from Chikkamagaluru venturing in to autocross as she is a regular racing driver with further 12sec difference completed the podium. Sumitha Thattachery from Nileswar finished in fourth with a difference of 19sec, Chaitra V Urs from Mysuru with further 15sec difference was fifth, with a difference of 4sec Rashi TS from Mysuru finished sixth as Sonam Chugh also from Mysuru was seventh.
Local Boys:
Ithihas from Mysuru driving a Maruti Esteem clocked 2min 31.406sec to win the class, as Nischay with .600th of a second was second and Akash Aradhya finished third with further 4sec difference. Amruth MariGowda was slower by 2sec and settled for fourth, Syed Imran Ahmed with a second difference finished fifth. P Manju Gowda with less than a second difference was sixth. Yeshwanth Kumar MS, Rohit RS and Priyankanth K all finished in the same second to finish in seventh, eighth and ninth position, Nanda Kishor KS finished in tenth.
4wheel drive Open:
Darshan Nachappa Kokkengada from Kodagu was the winner by clocking 2min 32.141sec, Nanda Kishor KS from Mysuru finished second with a difference of over 12sec. Jigmet Singey from Leh Lakadh with less than two seconds difference finished third. Abhinav Ganapathy MS from Bengaluru with over a second difference was fourth, Shashi umar from Bengaluru and Thilak Tholasi from Mysuru finished in fifth and sixth position respectively.