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Maruti Suzuki Desert
Storm |
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 Maruti
Suzuki's annual rendezvous with the Thar Desert is Maruti Desert
Storm. The six-day rally, which has many firsts to its credit, traverses
over 3,000 km through the interiors of Rajasthan and along
the Gujarat coastline before culminating at Udaipur in Rajasthan.
The rally is a mix of adventure, thrill and excitement for the participants
as they tread through uncharted territory and experience the formidable
Thar Desert, the rocky and uncertain Aravalli, and the slippery
and white sands of the Rann of Kutch.
The route takes the rallyists through competitive and transport
sections. The competitive section includes tough, off-road terrain
that has gravel, sand and rocks, while the transport section is
run on inter-city state highways and connecting roads.
Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm thoroughly tests the skills of
the drivers and ruggedness of their cars and the bikes. The rally
covers the most scenic and picturesque remote areas of Rajasthan.
Heritage properties at Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Khimser & Jaipur serve
as night halts.
 Highest
participation
Over 250 rally enthusiasts from as far as Arunachal Pradesh in the east to
Goa in the west enter to take on the challenges of the wilderness.
The participants include doctors, engineers, businessmen and housewives
across age groups. There are also some women teams' and ' husband-wife'
teams which participate. Indian Army and Air Force also send their
teams.
The safety effort is supplemented with over 8 ambulances along the
route. The rally is monitored for its entire duration by over thirty
radio-equipped cars. More than a hundred volunteers ensure safe
passage of the event, most of them are rally and motorsport veterans. |
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Maruti Suzuki
Desert Storm has three categories : |
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PRO (for professionals) - 4WD & 2WD |
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NAV (for amateurs) - 4WD SUV |
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NAV (for amateurs) - Cars |
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The Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm runs
through a mix of around
12 Special Stages to test the participants' driving skills under
various conditions. The 12 stages are as follows: |
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Wild cat: A drive through
leopard territory via a dry river bed under the night sky |
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Back to School: A simple
straight-forward section through sandy farming country which
can bog down the unwary |
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Redline Express: Running
parallel to a train track and then suddenly turning into
a sandy section is not so easy that too with a speed evaluation. |
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The Twilight Zone: This
section makes most of the participants end up on a sand dune |
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Dust to Glory: This is a
stage where one can even find that he has lost the path |
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Ground Zero: It may seem
easy to drive through dry lakes till they reveal that they
aren't really dry |
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Tora Tora Tora : Situated
right next to an Air Force practice range |
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Bad Max: It is a freezing
level where one has to cross a 80km long river bed |
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Black Gold Special: The
site of local 'Mahopar' festival features a short and twisty
special track that snakes between two dunes and then opens at the National
Highway |
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Forest & Furious: The thrill
of driving through the forest |
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The Beach: Driving along
the waves of the Arabian Sea and inhaling the salt-infused
air of the high seas |
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Gone in Sixty Seconds: After
a long, sandy and scary drives, the last one is quite exciting
with a 75 km long stretch on a flat horizon with no discerning
landmarks |
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Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm is organized in partnership with Northern Motorsport, Northern Motorsport is one of the leading motorsport
organization in India and organizes a range of motorsport events
for Maruti Suzuki including Maruti Suzuki Raid-de-Himalaya,
Dakshin Dare etc.
With a team of well-known automotive enthusiasts, Maruti Suzuki
and Northern Motorsport together are exploring the unexplored terrains
of motorsports in India. |
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