Champion biker Santosh heads for Abu Dhabi rally

Santosh, the champion biker who won the top title in Rally Moto at the 12th Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm in 2014 will now be heading for the World Cross Country Rally Championship in Abu Dhabi. Santosh had won the Rally Moto category at the Maruti Suzuki Raid De Himalaya in 2012 also.

“This is my year,” said Santosh. “I feel that everything will go right for me this year.” Winning the year’s first motorsport title, at the Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm, has certainly helped. Santosh admits that he was under immense internal pressure not to yield the title to Helmut Frauwallner, the 54-year-old Austrian who won the Maruti Suzuki Raid De Himalaya, in October 2013.

“This is a benchmark that I set for myself, and it is only going to get tougher from here,” he said.

The Maruti Suzuki Desert Strom was flagged off from New Delhi on February 24. It traversed 2,200 kilometers over the wild desert outback of Sardarshahar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, before ending at Jaipur on March 1.