Rally ace Suresh Rana and his navigator Parminder Thakur led the 2016 edition of the 2200km long Dakshin Dare rally from the beginning to emerge as the overall winners. Driving a Maruti Gypsy, reigning champion Sandeep Sharma and co-driver Karan Arya fought hard but had to settle for the second position behind the Grand Vitara. Jasmohan Saini and Vikram Thakur, also piloting a Gypsy claimed the third position. T Nataraj and Febin Jose rode their TVS 450s to the podium followed by Akash Aithal on a Royal Enfield 500.
The Dakshin Dare was flagged off from Bengaluru and moved towards Coorg. After three legs in Coorg, the rally headed towards Shivamogga about 320kms away. Two days of racing were planned across almost 400kms near Shivamogga which saw Suresh Rana maintaining his lead and Sandeep Sharma moving to second and trying to catch up with the race leader. TVS had a field day all along the rally with T Nataraj and Febin Jose going strong from the beginning. Akash Aithal, riding a Royal Enfield 500, rode incredibly well with his eyes set on the podium.
The rally went further from Shivamogga to Goa and despite the challenging stages, the standings remained unchanged. Ganesh Moorthy and T Nagarajan won the Endurance category followed by Raghu Nandan and M Prakash in second and Karthick Maruthi and Sankar Anand in third.
