The Hindu : Kerala News : London-Sydney Marathon to be flagged off tomorrow

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Thursday, Jun 17, 2004

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London-Sydney Marathon to be flagged off tomorrow

From A Correspondent

Cars for the Indian leg of the London-Sydney Marathon being taken out of the Antinov cargo aircraft at Nedumbassery on Wednesday.

NEDUMBASSERY, JUNE 16 . After a gap of 11 years, the renowned London-Sydney Marathon (LSM) car rally is back in India. This time South India will play the host. The contestants and the cars for the rally arrived today at the Cochin International Airport, Nedumbassery.

Two cargo flights, carrying the cars, arrived here from Angara in Turkey. Volga Dnepr Airlines's Antinov 124, one of the biggest cargo flights in the world, landed at the Isolation bay of the airport with the first lot of 23 cars on board. The flight arrived at 10-40 a.m., four hours behind scheduled.

The Airport Director, Gigi Ramesh, and representatives of Spitfire Motor Sports Private Ltd, the organisers of India leg of the rally, were present to receive the flight amid tight security. It is a matter of pride that Kochi was selected for receiving the flights, Ms. Ramesh said.

The second Antinov flight, carrying the remaining 46 cars, arrived at 12-50 p.m., again behind scheduled. As the cars were arranged in double decks inside the flight, it took more time to unload it. Besides, the heavy rain interrupted the process more than once. A car got trapped while being unloaded and one of the service cars was pressed into service to get the car back on track. From classical Falcon to the 90,000 pound Porsche Cayenne Turbo soon lined up a little away from the runway of the Isolation bay. Land Cruiser, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Pathfinder, Mitsubishi Warrior, BMW X5, the older version of Skoda, etc., were some of royal cars to make their presence here today.

The cars remained at the airport till the group of 150, including the drivers and navigators, arrived at six in the evening by a chartered flight of the Malaysian Airlines. Later, the participants drove away in their cars to the hotels near the airport, where they will stay till Friday.

The contestants are from countries like Germany, Austria, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Norway, Czech Republic and Russia. However, Asian participation is missing. Fredy Preston (82) from the U.K. is the senior-most member and he had been taking part in the rallies since 1968. Terry Kingsley is another driver who has participated in the rally four times.

Though officially tomorrow is a rest day for the participants, they are expected to spend time readying their cars for the gruelling phase of the rally ahead of them.

The India leg of the rally, routed through Munnar-Coimbatore-Mysore-Kochi, is expected to cover some 3,500 km. The cars will be flagged off from Nedumbassery airport on Friday morning by the Tourism Minister, P. Sankaran. The participants would return to Kochi on June 21 and would leave for Darwin after a day's rest.

The rally is classified into two categories. One for the pre-1978 classic cars and the other for modern cars, J. Balamurali, Director of Spitfire Motor Sports Private Ltd, said. In all, 62 cars are participating in the rally and six are service cars. Contestants are expected to cover approximately 300 km a day. He said that places as diverse as Munnar and Mysore were selected to give the participants a feel of the varied culture of India.

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