By Abhishek Purohit
Manali, Oct 10 (IANS): Amartejpal Buwal emerged Raid de Himalaya champion in the Xtreme category which concluded Friday at Dercha in Himachal Pradesh.

Buwal, who hails from Samrala in Ludhiana, drove a Gypsy to finish the race ahead of A.V.S. Gill and Karan Jung. Buwal clocked 10 hours and 35.41 minutes to complete the race which had a 482-km long competitive stage.

While Gill completed the race in 10 hours and 36.51 minutes, Jung finished 10.19 minutes later than Gill.

Nine-time champion Suresh Rana Thursday went off the track at a stretch between Sarchu and Nakeela. The 41-year-old Rana was leading the race by six minutes ahead of second-placed Abhishek Mishra. But both the top two competitors lost balance on a sharp turn and were ruled out of the race. This pulled Buwal and his navigator Nakul Mendiratta into contention for a top finish along with Gill and Jung.

The sixth and the final leg had three stages -- Sarchu-Patseo, Dercha-Shingola and Shingola-Dercha -- and Buwal gave a clinical performance to win it for the first time.

"It feels great. Raid de Himalaya is the toughest rally in India. Though at the start, it was easy from Shimla to Manali but since then, it has been a tough journey. From Manali to Kaza, the track was really rough which took a lot of toll on both me and the vehicle. The third leg around Kaza was fast and I was really relieved that the most difficult leg -- Kaza to Sarchu -- was cancelled due to snowfall," Buwal said.

"And yesterday, some mishaps forced Suresh and Abhishek to get out of the competition and it took me to a top position. Today, it was a close finish as Gill was close on my heels. Finally, it was great that I pulled it off."

In the Xtreme two-wheeler category, Bangalore's R. Natraj, who rode a TVS RTR 450FX, walked away with the championship with a timing of nine hours and 50 minutes ahead of second-placed Suresh Babu of Delhi, who took 10 hours and 29.01 minutes to complete the race. Saurabh Handa was third with a timing of 10 hours and 49.28 minutes.

Meanwhile in the adventure category, the team of Jagmeet Gill and Chandan Sen won with a three minutes and 20 seconds penalty while Subir Roy and Neerav Mehta got a penalty of three minutes and 40 seconds to finish second. Ashish Budia and Arindam Ghosh claimed third place after getting a four-minute and 53-second penalty.