The K1000 is one of the important fixtures on the rally calendar. The event has been flagged off from the YMCA grounds today (16th August 03) and the SS’s start tomorrow at 0700 at Bagepalli. Bagepalli is on the Bangalore-Bellary road some 100kms from Bangalore. Pics and report ahead!
K-1000 Rally report (Updated: 18th August 03)
Early by Sunday standards, it had been decided to meet at 0930 at the usual meeting spot of NASA, on Church Street, Bangalore. But because the SuperSpecial stages were to start at 0700 in the morning, we decided to leave Bangalore at 0900 and proceed to Bagepalli, some 100 kms from Bangalore. Overslept as usual and went racing to the place only to see Tom, Danny and his g.f. (Who left shortly) there. Phew! A small wait later, Tom’s cousin, Suhas, Sanju and Jaggu landed up. Of these people, Sanju was the one who had come to see us off, since some other appointment had cropped up. Sumanth from the Mumbai Pistons (a.k.a TheDarkLord on RDD), too dropped by briefly just as we were getting ready to leave.
We decided to take only one car and piled ourselves into Tom’s Esteem. Tom and his cousin decided to sit up front, each of them large enough by themselves to bog down an Esteem and the rest of us (Danny, Jaggu, Suhas and myself) at the rear. Wow! We literally redefined the term “too close for comfort” there. By the time we hit the first six lane stretch, blood refused to flow into those nooks and corners and we hit our first stop.
A few change of places some refuelling into the car and it was time for Tom to show us his high speed stunts in traffic. Had us all blabbering to each other about topics like “Survival instincts” just to keep our eyes off the road. We have definite data on the Survival instincts of three Mynas, a Crow, a Lorry driver and a dog.
Finally, we reached Bagepalli, but not before taking a wrong turn at a fork in the road and entering the town through the crowded market roads. We headed straight to the hub of activity, which was the end of the last transport sector and the start point for the first, the service bay area/ prize distribution area. The Shamianas, had a few of the Group-C bikes already under service afterthe first round and a few more bikes coming in. the TVS team seemed to have everythingsorted out and the mechanics were giving their riders full support. A few Yamahas werethe only bikes to give the factory Shaolins any kind of competition in the modified class. The Group-D bikes were more evenly spaced out. In the 4-stroke class, I was pretty surprised to see a few Pulsars running alongside the normal entries of TVS Fiero/Victor and Yamahas.
We left the place to catch up with the second round at SS1 and the distance wasabout 30kms. We had to stop on the way to buy some beer for ourselves to sustain us in the hot and dryBagepalli weather. But well, who needs an excuse to drink? The SS1 and 2 was supposed to be gravel/ dirt and SS3 tarmac. But the treacherous SS1 and 2 had stones,mainly granite that was used to lay roads, the diameter of 4-6cms laid out. By the time we reached this spot we missed out on the faster Group C machines and watched the Group D and the 4-stroke class. Here the Fieros really showed their class with the factory riders and the Pulsars and their riders were taking a solid beating. Pulsars just do not seem to be made for that kind of terrain. We even had a faller on the ill handling pulsars. Finished some of the beer and decided to take off to watch the SS3 which would be decidedly faster taking into account the 100% tarmac on that stage. On our way there we saw alot of the bikes returning to the base, after finishing the SS3, second round. So, I clicked a few snaps from the car while we were heading in the other direction.
When we reached the checkpoint of SS3 finally, we saw that we had ~1hr to kill before the bikes would come around again. So, we decided to go to one of the local hotels and eat something. We reached a small town that we’d seen on the way and decided to go to a hotel there. The only thing to eat there was “anna-sambar” (Rice with Sambar) We were famished and decided to eat. But, Tom decided not eat there because the water in which the food was prepared was not from the river Thames. He decided to haveBananas and packaged biscuits from the neighbouring bakery instead. After each one had hisfill and the bill came up, just 13.00/ head. Wow! We sauntered back to the car and reached a vantage pointwhere we could get to watch the bikes come from far and go over a small swelling on the road and take off into the air and go round a long left-hander and disappear.
Finally after almost 45mins to an hour we heard the first of the bikes coming up.Due to the flat land and not too fast winds, the sound of the bikes could be heard long before they appeared and long after they disappeared. It turned out to be a Group-C Yamaha. This was closely followed by a Group C Shaolin, which sounded really bad. Seems, the Yamaha had overtaken the ailing Shaolin.One by one, all the bikes went by and we had a good time cheeringand clicking away on the camera. Jaggu even got a few videos of the Group-C machines.
After the last of the 4-strokes had passed, we decided to go back to the camp to watch the prize distribution. Once we reached there, the weather that had been holding back, just let loose. It had everyone scampering for cover and back to the car in minutes. We sat in the car for sometime and decided to call it a day and head back to Bangalore, since the sky was not clearing out. The papers had mention sometime ago that Bagepalli was facing a drought. I saw no reason why this should have been the case. The drive back was uneventful because of the torrid showers and the fact that I fell asleep.
Woke almost when we were hitting Bangalore when a truck blew its horn, right in my ear. Landed up at Church Street again, picked up our respective vehicles and split for the night. But, the rain gods were not done with us as yet and we had another heavy downpour. Suhas and myself decided to eat it out at KFC and then split. But the rains weren’t holding up and reached home, drenched to the core, after spending the day in a place facing severe drought.
Well, all in all this was a nice day out and saw a lot of action. The only bad thing being that we could not get the results or any of the snaps from the prize distribution. Hopefully, I will be able to get hold of the results soon and update this article.
Enjoy and Ride safe!