On 14th February 2010 India’s leading car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki flagged off the 2010 Desert Storm and the privileged person to do this was Mr. Shashank Srivastava, Chief General Manager (Marketing), Maruti Suzuki, from Noida. The 2010 Desert Storm is the 8th edition of this successful event and as the terrain this year is very difficult to conquer, the event promises to be a lot more tougher with longer distances to cover.
The participation is growing bigger and better every year with a surprising number of 250 rallyists with 100 odd cars and 20 bikes who all are supposed to travel 3,000 kilometers with route covering the interior of Rajasthan stretching up to Gujart’s coastline and finally ending at Udaipur in Rajasthan.
As compared to last year’s edition where the rallyists had to drive cover to 20-30km of tough terrain at each leg this year the drivers will go through at least 100-200 Kms of demanding tracks which will definitely test the skills along with the mental and physical state of the drivers.
Mr. Srivastava,Chief General Manager (Marketing), while the flagging off ceremony was going on said, “Maruti Suzuki has been the pioneer in motorsport in India. For over a decade, it has been making serious efforts to bring motorsport to amateur as well as professional motorsport enthusiasts. We organize the most challenging motorsport events in the country such as Maruti Suzuki Raid-de-Himalaya and Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm. Recently, we started Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare to expand the geographical presence of our motoring events. These efforts are showing very encouraging results. A striking feature of this year’s Desert Storm is the highest participation and over 35 per cent participants are first timers.”
And with the focus of the company growing more on rally sports Mr. Srivastava also said “Maruti Suzuki will continue its efforts to create more motoring opportunities for young Indians and popularize motorsport”.
The participants include doctors, engineers, businessmen and even homemakers, and also a few all-women teams and husband-wife teams with the Indian Army also sending its teams. The 250 rallyists will be put through competitive and transport sections with the competitive section including tough, off-road terrain that has gravel, sand and rocks, while the transport section running through normal inter-city state highways
The Xtreme category,will include 11 stages: Quake Zone, Tropic Of Cancer, Beach Run, Twilight Zone, Bad Max +, Nuclear Zone, Airport Express, Never Ending Saga, Twister, Runn off Kutch and Wild Cat. The Xplore category, on the other hand, will have six stages: Morning Light, On to the sea, Night & Day, Sand Dunes, Pilgrim Passage, and Bad Max +.
After the ceremony the drivers are supposed to assemble at Paota (on Delhi-Jaipur highway) from where the first section starts at 14th February midnight, charging towards Bikaner where the teams will take a halt before proceeding to Jaisalmer with Thar desert ready to greet them. Moving further the teams will reach the next halt at Bhuj, located at the periphery of the Great Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.
At Bhuj the teams will spend two nights in their respective tents after driving through the wet and dry sand along the beach on Gujarat coastline and will finally end it at Udaipur with the prize distribution ceremony scheduled on 19th February.
In partnership with Northern Motorsport, Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm is being organized for the 8th time in the country.And for those of you who don’t know about Northern Motorsports, it is one of the leading motorsport organizations in India and it organizes a bunch of motorsport events for Maruti Suzuki including Autocross, Rally of the North, etc. Northern Motorsport has intentionally raised the level of difficulty for the Desert Storm event this year solely to justify the tag line of `the ultimate adventure‘.
