"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face,
you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson

Himachal Car Rally
(As a member of POWER M1 CHALLANGE 2004
Mountain Car Racing Radio Communication Crew)


With an array of communication antennas loaded on top of an Indica



With 'Stage Commander' Amarjung Singh



Providing communication from 'Start of Section point 5 (SOS-5)' in the rally track (informal)



Providing communication from 'Start of Section point 5' in the rally track (formal)


The anonymous dog: my companion at SOS (Start Of Section)-5 point
near to Sabuthi 22 km away from Solan

Relaxing at the 'Mother Ambulance" at 'SPECIAL STAGE 8' (SS-8)
..No distress signal heard so far..all racing cars are 'SAFE' so far...


Along Ayer (Nagaland) with his 'navigator': another winner



a car racing on the track



Cars have to be modified prior to 'racing' ('SAFETY REQUIREMENTS')



Animation Graphic Artist Parul Babbar from Chandigarh (who dreams to be a rally driver)
I got to learn many things about car rallies from this lady
.. Working as a rally official for several years including Raid-De-Himalaya...


Stage Commander 'Kultar Singh'



The 'Dirt High Speed Racing Track' spanning 20 km



 The Dynamic & Commanding Lady { COC: Clark Of Course-Mrs. NAVAZ SANDHU (Left; mother of a 5 months old baby, who was over all 'Director' of the 'show' with Raja Virbadhra Singh (Right), Chief Minister, Himachal Pradesh} . .. Oops! Could not take a snap; ..turned her head right.
COC Mrs. NAVAZ SANDHU was the overall Rally Coordinator and Administrator.. from a Royal Family.


SS : Special Stage (the point where the high speed racing starts. The dare devil drivers cruise at speeds of 100-120 km/hr where an average driver would dare to be at 20-30 km/hr ! !..'2nd gear driving' with modified vehicles! ! A vehicle cruising at 100 km/hr in 2nd gear ! ! ! You need to damage your car in order to win and you need to have spare engines in the event of a break-down so that you can afford to race the next round...


Racing Cars warming up at a Chandigarh Dirt Track

There are several rounds of racing in the 20 km track. We operated in 5 rounds day and night communicating messages hardly getting any time to sleep.

See Along Ayer from Nagaland..He also won 'something'..sponsored by 'Nagaland Police'..He was driving a Gypsy...There was one driver from Meghalaya too..


A Car Racing on the track

SC: Stage Commander-Amarjung Singh: Son of a retired army officer..a businessman...Very generous towards the village people who would be of help in the event of an emergency...


Oh Yeah! This is ham radio! !

SOS-5: Start of Section 5 (This is the point 5 km away from Rally Start point). Our job was to inform the Rally Base (at Solan) about the movement of vehicles. Rally Base instructions originated from COC Mrs. NAVAZ SANDHU.

Stage: The actual racing track (from where the racing cars may fall down...)


A Ham Base Station (Beneath a Tyre?)

Whats there in life if you don't play the game of life and death?

Hams reinvented themselves during the HP, MRF and JK Tyre sponsored High Speed Mountain Car Racing as 'rally marshals being the members of the communication crew'..It was great fun for them inside the isolated mountains of the Himachal Pradesh. In fact the entire rally coordination could not have been possible without ham radio operators.


A Car Modified for 'Racing'

Thanks to OM Bhanu (M.B. Singh), VU2MB, OM Sandeep, VU2BX (Who were the ham radio coordinators for the Car Rally) who got us involved in the event. Hams were operating from Rally Head Quarter at Hotel Peterhoff (Shimla, Himachal Pradesh), Rally Base at Solan (HP Tourism Guesthouse) and many were either mobile or static inside the remote mountains where the actual racing took place. This was the first time I saw what a Car Rally is! I saw the zooming cars modified for the speeds of 70-80 km/hr or 100-120 km/hr inside the tracks where an ordinary driver would not dare to be at 20-30 km/hr....And that is what a racing is! If the car skids off the track..it would be down hundreds feet below and may be the car cannot even be traceable at certain points! The racing track (called the 'Stage') has a length of only 20 km where several rounds of racing took place inclusive of several other rounds in other 'states'.

Ham's Role !!

Can snails race? Did the hams race?
According to a previous 'Radio Mapping' of the area (done by VU2MB & VU2BX duo ) we got positioned with our VHF equipment. There were 16 hams (approx.) providing 'Third Party' communication (communication on behalf of rally drivers and rally officials who are not hams). 3 hams come from Agra, 2 from Chandigarh, 1 from Mumbai and the rest from Delhi with VU2MB (Bhanu Singh) coordinating the event.

The total length of the rally route was 500 km and the special stage or competitive section involved 120 km. The rally followed a cloverleaf pattern where different special stages was repeated over the span of two days on off-roa mountain track where spectators could witness the action of high-speed racing.

Major Safety Requirement of the cars for eligibility to participate:
All cars conformed to the strict technical and safety specifications laid down by the FIA, Appendix J, Technical Regulations for Group N, 2003 (make a google search!).
(1) Specially fabricated roll cage that prevents the car from crumpling in when it turns over
(2) quick-release four-point harness for seats,
(3) special rally seats
(4) helmets with a minimum of an ISI mark,
(5) complete restrengthening of the car and its undercarriage to prevent the car from breaking up when driving hard on bad road surfaces.

The rally was sponsored by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited as the name came, i.e. HP M1

 

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