Guwahati: 40 cars, one destination. A thrilling drive through unknown roads at a specific speed. A national-level car rally from Guwahati to Kaziranga with the motto of road safety. This is not a rally of high speed. It’s the competition of the presence of mind, alertness and knowledge of traffic laws of the driver and the navigator. Each of the contestants here is a brand ambassador of road safety.
After the success of the previous two editions, the third edition of the Northeast TSD Rally kickstarted from today. The 3-day event, held under the supervision of Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI) as per international motorsports rules, started from Guwahati and will conclude at Kaziranga.
The 3rd NETSD rally was flagged off from the Khanapara Ganesh Mandir Stadium today at 3 pm. Earlier, the scrutiny of documents was held from 9 am. The cars will start their journey to Kaziranga through an unknown road from the same venue at 7 am on January 11. Each car will depart at an interval of 2 minutes. The first leg of the rally will end at Borgos resort in Kaziranga in the evening. After a night halt, another short distance rally will be held in the morning of December 12. The prizes will be distributed to winning teams at Borgos later in the day.
The rally is being organised by Heritage Northeast and Aanchal, both NGOs, and conducted by the Eastern Motorsports. The main objective of this rally is to create road safety awareness and promote the Northeast as an adventure tourism destination before the world. This year, 40 cars from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Raipur are participating in the rally.
“We take immense pride to inform everyone that after the success of NETSD rally, motorsports enthusiasts have started looking to the Northeast. The rally has managed to occupy a place for itself in the national motorsports event map. In the 2nd edition of the rally, altogether 5 national teams had joined who grabbed all the top 3 positions,” said Anupam Deka, one of the organizers.
“This has prompted them to hold the rally in 2 separate categories this time, national and Northeast. Besides, there will be a separate award for Best Women’s Team. This year, the rally has seen the participation of many big names of national rally circuit. Moreover, the total prize money has been raised to ₹2.5 lakh from earlier ₹2 lakh,” added Deka.
