Third Day – Bangalore to Hassan – 7th August, 2007

Longest day so far as Rally moves on to Hassan

The CEAT Mumbai Xpress Autorickshaw Rally 2007 moved into its third of thirteen stages today with a race from the ‘Electronic City’ of Bangalore to the picturesque town of Hassan. Hassan is a tiny but busy town with a history that goes back to the 11th century and now famous for the nearby historic locations of Sharavanabelagola, Belur and Halebid.

After the previous night’s partying it was to be an uncomfortably early start for everyone with the 7am flag-off and heavy rain. The first challenge for the participants was to carefully negotiate Bangalore’s heavy rush hour traffic. “The traffic in Bangalore is crazy and we knew this was no place to make mistakes. If we had broken down, we would have stayed there for the rest of the day” described one of the Hungarian drivers.

A convey was arranged to try and reduce the burden however the organisers got stuck in traffic themselves and a few of the teams lost the convoy and had to negotiate Bangalore themselves. Pink Panic and Tukkin’ Crazy got into a bit of situation with some local motorists after accidentally they accidentally knocked a local motorist off his motorcycle but they were eventually rescued by the mechanics and 3 hours later they were free of the city.

In between all of this, six teams were visiting local schools today with the A-Team, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Racing, Badger Racing, Rickshaw Without Borders, Iced Tea and Notorious Bhadji and Return of the Chennai all taking part. These teams have to visit the schools and still complete the whole day’s racing and challenges so they are escorted by the local Rotarians to the particular school they are assigned and are followed by the organiser’s charity truck, laden with the masses of supplies purchased by the participants.

When they reach the school they meet the school’s director usually and are guided around to meet the children and sometimes see a little performance they have prepared. Then comes the actuall distribution of the gifts and supplies the participants have brought, before they are off again, back to rejoin the rest of the rally. There are 32 schools for each of the 32 teams in the rally involved and as Aravind Kumar Bremanandam, the lead organiser, reminded everyone, “we hope the biggest winners of the rally will be the Indian children”.

Back on the rally a lot of the participants were caught by the heavy monsoon rain which had been pouring continuously all afternoon, slowing down the autorickshaws, and six teams managed to get lost at exactly the same point on the route. The organisers only information from each of them was to find a Gas station on the way to Hassan which has a wine shop with no lights.

Somehow though they were eventually picked up and convoyed back to the hotel although there were a lot of teams arriving late in the evening. The Autocrats did not make it back until 11pm, and were navigating with only a flash light, however on arrival everyone gave them a big cheer to welcome them in for the night. The feeling among the participants though was that the rally was proving to be a real challenge and they were greatly looking forward to another night of partying to relax. Tired but not extinguished, it was to the hotel bar for late night drinks and comparing the day’s stories before settling down for the night.

On Wednesday the rally heads on to Manglore.

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