The rally, which has 41 entries, is a candidate event for a round of the 2014 Asia Cup which is part of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship.
Chikkamagalur: Having already clinched the FMSCI Indian National Rally Championship, Kolkata's Amittrajit Ghosh (codriver Ashwin Naik) is giving the Coffee Day Rally, the fifth and concluding round of the event a miss, but there is still a lot at stake for the rest in the rally which begins on Thursday .
The rally, which has 41 entries, is a candidate event for a round of the 2014 Asia Cup which is part of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship.
With four straight wins, Ghosh with 156 points has sealed the championship with a round to spare but the competition will be on for the other podium positions.
Mangalore's Arjun Rao (co-driver Satish Rajagopal) is second overall with 66 points, just four ahead of Bangalorean Vikram Devadasen who will have a new partner in Naik.
The close contests in the INRC notwithstanding, newly-crowned APRC Gaurav Gill and Karamjit Singh of Malaysia will be the star attractions.
The 32-year old Gill from Delhi, along with veteran co-driver Musa Sherif, in a modified Mahindra XUV 500 representing the Mahindra Adventure Rally team, has already clinched the championship in the introductory SUV class with three wins for a total of 117 points.
Also in the fray is former national champion Vikram Mathias and the 2012 Asia Pacific co-driver champion Vivek Ponnusamy, driving a turbo-charged, 1.6 diesel engine-powered Volkswagen Polo which too is on a test run.
The rally commences on Thursday evening with a 2.50kms spectator Super Special Stage before the vehicles head to the Coffee Day estates for the three Special Stages that will be run twice on Friday and once on Saturday, completing a total distance of 370.68 Kms.
