Pune: In the cesspool of Indian rally drivers who have been endlessly trying in vain to strike gold this unassuming man from Pune has emerged as a brightest hope for the future after he ended his 2011 season on yet another podium and doubled it up by winning the season-ending Malaysian Rally Championship.
Sanjay Takale, who drove on different terrains and in varied formats of the rally championships, became the Malaysian Champion in the P9 class—non-homologated cars up to 1400cc—driving for the Pennzoil GSR Racing Team in a Proton Satria car.
Winning the national title of another country is in itself a huge task. What makes Takale’s performance special is that throughout the season he drove with an Indian navigator Musa Sheriff and though he was forced to change his co-driver for the fourth and final round, he took it up as a challenge drove through to yet another podium in trying conditions.
My main competition was against the Malaysian driver Dinie nazme Abd rahaman in my class. In the first stage he beat me by more than 3 minutes with a time of 15 minutes while I took 18.43 minutes. But I came back to beat him in the 2nd stage where I clocked 23.47 minutes while he clocked 26.47 minutes. After this I beat him in all the remaining 7 stages thus beating him by a margin of more than 10 minutes to win the class.
“I was invited by my old team boss Mohammad Rafik Udaya to drive for his team. He also invited Karamjit Singh Former WRC champion to drive for his team and his team consisted of 2 drivers. Both drivers won their respective classes. Karamjit Singh won the overall championship with his 2 litres 4 wheel drive Subaru car.
