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Bangalore : Pramod Joshua of Team TVS Racing won the Mak K-1000 Rally comfortably for back-to-back victories in the Mak Indian National Rally Championship (INRC) for two-wheelers at Siddlaghatta, about 70 kms from here, on Aug 22.
The tough terrain and the treacherous second stage following overnight rains led to cancellation of the last two stages. Joshua, who won the first leg at Coimbatore, heads the leader board in the National Championship.
'Thanks to the Almighty, I was able to gain a comfortable lead after the first two stages despite the tricky second stage and then some trade secrets helped me protect my lead,' said Joshua.
'The route was completely different from what we saw during the reccee and with my being the route opener, it was really tough but after the first two Special Stages, I managed to stay afloat with controlled aggression,' he added.
Team-mate HK Pradeep was fastest in the first sector in all the three stages of SS 1, 3 and 5 but lost a lot of time in the second sector.
'The pot holes and the slush made life miserable and I had to even remove the spark plug and lost over two minutes,' said Pradeep while the travails of defending champion KP Aravind were equally 'tragic'.
'The track was tougher than expected and the second stage was very bad. It was unpredictable and every time the line was different and difficult. In SS-2, I crashed about four times and lost all the time and never recovered after that,' said the rider from Team TVS Racing.
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