Naren Kumar looking to consolidate

V R Naren Kumar will be the man to beat in the third round of the FIA Singha Beer Asia Zone motor rally championship which will be held in Pattaya, Thailand, on Saturday and Sunday.

Having won the previous two rounds, at Coimbatore in April and Indonesia in June, Kumar, of the MRF team, has emerged the strongest candidate to clinch the Asian championship which will have two more rounds after this, as the Malaysian leg, originally the third of the six-round event, was cancelled.

Kumar has aggregated 32 points from his two wins and his nearest competitor is Karamjit Singh of Malaysia, who stood second in both the races, with 18 points.

A win in Pattaya will almost guarantee Kumar victory in the Asian champioship though a theoretical chance of his being overtaken will still exist [a fact that has made the 27-year- old from Coimbatore leave nothing to chance].

Eight teams will be in the running for top honours in the 132.27km rally, which will include three Indian cars.

In addition, 21 more cars will be participating in the Thailand National rally, to be held concurrently.

Besides Naren Kumar, Arjun Balu, also of MRF, and Hari Singh of JK Tyres are the other Indian contenders in fray.

On Friday morning, the 'recee' will be held in which all the participants will drive on the actual rally route but in their stand-by cars and at slower speed. This is to familiari- se themselves with the route and get a feel of the track.

The 'shake-down' [in which the drivers test their cars on tracks similar to the one to be used for the rally] which was to be held on Thursday morning was cancelled. However, the participants, keen to test their vehicles, looked out for separate tracks themselves and had a sort of 'shake-down' in the evening.