Dinesh overall winner at Sevanagala Rally

Rizvi wins 3 stages for EZY team:

Racing driver Rizvi Farouk of EZY racing team showed great prowess in rally driving when he dominated the seasons opener in the Speed Rally Championship in Sevanagala, jointly organized by Sri Lanka's oldest motor racing club CMSC and Rally specialists MRA.

Rizvi who was the Rally Champion in 2009, was in great form right from the word go as he showed great speed and control to win the most amount of stages won by a single driver in the Rally Sevanagala 2011 and later went on to almost winning the rally before he was handed a very harsh penalty which cost him the rally victory.

Defending Rally Champions EZY Racing team, who were represented by the 2010 drivers champion Shafraz Junaid in his ER3 (EZY Subaru STI 3) and 2009 drivers champion Rizvi Farouk in his ER9 (EZY Subaru STI 8), went into the 2011 season opener as a very strong contender to win both the drivers and the team Rally championship for yet another year.

Both Rizvi and Shafraz, started off exhibiting why they were the past champions by finishing first and second respectively in SSI (special stage 1) as they clocked a far superior timing over the other competitors. Dinesh Degeragoda in his Mitsubishi Evolution X who finished 3rd on the stage then upped his pace to win the SS2 in which Rizvi and Shafraz yet again battled closely for the second and third places respectively.

With SS3 proving to be the last stage on day 1, Rizvi was on another blistering run where he finished a clear 20 seconds ahead of Dinesh Deheragoda to finish day one as the clear leader with

a dominant lead of over a minute. Shafraz, who was lying 2nd was on a blistering run in a bid to catch up with team mate Rizvi, when he had a tyre puncture, which cost him 9 minutes.

Day 2, saw Rizvi Farouk, whose team managed to remove the entire engine and re fix it by working the whole of the previous night, extend his lead by finishing on top of SS4. With just 2 more stages to complete the rally, Rizvi decided to take it easy on his car and finished 3rd on SS5 before winning the final stage of the rally, before being handed over a harsh penalty which deprived him of a rally win and positioned him on second place. With Rizvi being demoted to second place with a penalty, Dinesh Deheragoda was promoted as the rally leader and Javed Wahab, who had a tough season in 2010 with car problems, finishing 3rd.

Javed who was co-driven by his brother Ishraq showed great pace throughout the entire rally in his new car, Subaru STI 8.

With three more rallies scheduled, it was clearly evident that the computer manufacturer's racing team would put in all the required resources to go for the championship for a third consecutive year.