Source: Timesofindia.com

Bangalore (24 Nov, 2009): At a time when rallying in the country is struggling to stay afloat, the sport was handed a hammer blow when Team MRF Tyres, which won the top three spots in the Coffee Day Rally of Chikmagalur on Sunday evening, was excluded from the final classification as its cars failed to comply with a few technical specifications.

Gaurav Gill (co-driver Musa Sherif) brought the car back home to a thunderous applause from the
Reds crew at the service park at Birur on Sunday evening, but the Reds saw red when a protest by their rivals, Red Rooster Racing, was upheld late in the night.

Red Rooster, who didn’t run both their cars on the final day of the Speed-INRC’s season-finale on Sunday, had protested that the Cedia cars used by Gill, Lohitt Urs (Srikanth Gowda) and Arjun Rao Aroor (Sathish Rajagopal) — who had finished on the podium — in the 2000cc (N+) category, flouted rules by using illegal parts.

The protest was upheld in the stewards meeting later in the day, meaning that MRF had indeed used illegal parts. MRF, obviously hurt at the sudden turnaround, duly lodged an appeal for their exclusion.
No specific date has been set for the hearing, but from what Praneeth Perumal, chairman, Rally Commission (Four-wheeler), Federation of Motor Sport Clubs of India, told TOI on Monday, the hearing is likely to come up at the Indian Motor Sports Appellate Court (IMSAC) on November 28. There is an earlier K-1000 appeal, by Red Rooster Racing against MRF for using more than the specified number of air scoops on the bonnet during the second round of the INRC in August, which is coming for hearing on Nov 28. “We may also take up this MRF appeal on the same day,” said Perumal.