By Abhishek Purohit
Manali, Oct 11 (IANS): The Raid de Himalaya will zoom off from Manali instead of Shimla in its 17th edition and will travese through more remote areas, making it even more challenging for the participants, Himalayan Motorsport president Vijay Parmar said here Saturday.

“We realised that the places where the rally went this year, are getting more populated day by day. Hence, we are planning to start next year’s event from Manali and it will go to far-off places,” Parmar told IANS after the conclusion of the 16th edition of the rally.

"Also, we want to make it even more challenging for the drivers and riders. So we will look for places which are near the camp sites as stopping the general traffic is not going to be easy every year,” Parmar added.

This year’s fourth leg between Kaza to Sarchu was cancelled due to snowfall and Parmar said that from next year the tracks will be made shorter to avoid such incidents in the future.

"We cancelled the fourth stage on safety ground. It happened because there were long stages and it took a lot of time to get them out of the trouble. So, we will make the stages smaller but the number of stages will increase from next year so that the time to get out of a particular stage doesn’t take long. It will also help us in opening up the road early for public,” Parmar said.

This year's rally started from Luhri near Shimla and concluded in Dercha in Lahaul district in six days.

Amartejpal Buwal emerged Raid de Himalaya champion in the Xtreme category which concluded Friday at Dercha.

Buwal, who hails from Samrala in Ludhiana, drove a Gypsy to finish the race ahead of A.V.S. Gill and Karan Jung. Buwal clocked 10 hours and 35.41 minutes to complete the race which had a 482-km long competitive stage.

While Gill completed the race in 10 hours and 36.51 minutes, Jung finished 10.19 minutes behind Gill.

Nine-time champion Suresh Rana Thursday went off the track at a stretch between Sarchu and Nakeela.

The 41-year-old Rana was leading the race by six minutes ahead of second-placed Abhishek Mishra. But both the top two competitors lost balance on a sharp turn and were ruled out of the race.