Sixth Day – Murdeshwar to Karwar – 10th August

Rickshaw Rampage continues in Karnataka

The CEAT Mumbai Xpress Autorickshaw Rally 2007 continued North along the coast on Friday from Murdeshwar along the Arabian Sea coast. The destination for the 32 Teams is the beautiful Hidden Valley resort near to the town of Karwar, with exclusive beaches and excellent accommodation to make a relaxing break for the 72 participants after six action filled days on the rally.

The drive itself was an easy 130 km to the resort with beautiful scenery along the way which the participants were encouraged to take time off for viewing. Not for everyone, though. The American team Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Racing from New York, took a wrong turn and drove straight into a Navy Base. “We thought it was our hotel!” recounted driver John Zeman. “In India, every security guard wears a uniform, so we thought the guy was the porter. So, when he started waving and shouting, we just waved back, smiled and drove on. However, when the other guards came with guns, we knew we were in trouble”. After the mix up was resolved the two Americans were soon on their way again, although certainly feeling a little embarrassed.

The other participants managed to reach the destination by lunch. Most had not slept more than a couple of hours for the last five days, so they really appreciated the time to relax and enjoy the beaches. The racers also somehow managed to bring the sun with them, which was very welcome given the torrential rain of the previous days. The roads were generally quite dry apart from a downpour right after Murdeshwar and the autorickshaws really proved their capability with the first two beating the pace car to the destination.

Rickshaws tend to perform better on damaged roads because they can manoeuvre better amongst the potholes thanks to their extreme mobility and drivers do not fear breakdowns so much, as every village has its own rickshaw repair man who can set the vehicle on the road again in a couple of hours for a fair price. Most of the participants have learned how to do minor repairs on their rickshaws now though, and take it as a part of the challenge.

The participants have also started bonding more and more over these past six days and the organisers are noticing a lot of good friendships emerging and are even seeing a small part of their workload being reduced thanks to generous participants helping each other with breakdowns along the way. Everyone on the rally is mixing around and talking to everybody which is great to see, especially given the huge diversity of people taking part this year.

Tomorrow, Saturday 11th August at 8am the rally heads further North to Panjim, in the province of Goa.

Pictures can be found here:

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The route:

The Indian Autorickhaw Challenge team is sending out a press release on a daily basis.

For more information Contact:
Aravind Bremanandam, Lead organizer
Phone: +91-44-421-43343
E-mail at:admin@indianarc.com