Ooty, Jun 10 (IANS): Niaz Ali and Kim Epton from Australia maintain their overnight lead at the end of the second leg of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare 2010 Rally that arrived here Wednesday night.
Competing in a Grand Vitara, Ali and Epton topped the "Ultimate" class clocking one hour, 42 minutes, 35 seconds while in second place were Suresh Rana and Ashwin Naik (1:42.35), followed by Shafiq Ur Rehman and George (1:48.32).
In the two-wheeler category, Arvind KP, the overnight leader, had a broken swing arm and had to retire which made teammate Ravindra MS move up to the top spot. Veteran Rally rider Uday Kumar was placed second ahead of Nataraj R.
Leading in the Endurance class were Bangalore's Gangaraj and Chandu in a Maruti 800, while K Prasad and Armugham of Mysore (Maruti Gypsy) were second and Manju Gowda and Mustafa (Honda City), also of Mysore were third.
Following a night halt at Mysore, the competitors departed for the next leg to Kodagu, a run of 365 Kms through lush-green coffee plantations. Along the way, 17 hair-pin loops, the highest number in the southern part of the country and later entered Tamil Nadu through rain drenched and foggy Kallatti Ghats in the Nilgiris. This leg comprised of six stages of dirt tracks of a total of 70 kms.
The day started off with a nine kms stage which was smooth dirt with a few slippery patches. The drivers thoroughly enjoyed it. The second stage (16 Kms) was rough and this made Niaz Ali in his Vitara take a sizeable lead over his opponents.
The third stage was an 11 kms stretch and in its first round, it saw two drivers, Sachin Singh and Kushwant Randhawa retiring. They will be re-joining the rally to drive in the Super Rally format as they would not want to miss out on the long tarmac stages of Ooty.
One of the most difficult spots was at 'Time Check Point 9' in the midst of Kodagu forests, which had a curve and a parallel road that confused many drivers which was a real intentional track setting. Over a dozen of them missed the real route passing through most picturesque coffee plantation and had to bear the 30-minute penalty.