ZIP ZAP ZOOM: Deccan rally hits the road, leaving a trail of dust.

HYDERABAD : There were smiles behind visors and in the mirrors. There were clenched teeth, firm fists, hearts pounding like a drum and unflinching nerves made of tonnes of steel. Stepping on the gas, this was life in full throttle.

As the cars rumbled and roared into life and sped off like an arrow released from a bow, whizzing past mileposts, teak and eucalyptus plantations and dry forest tracts in a flash along the Karimnagar highway, one kept wondering what goes under the skin of the mean machines. Such was the dizzying speed that one thought the front wing would fly off and the suspensions disintegrate!

Did someone say speed was a dying art?

190 km per hour

Perish the thought. Here were cars touching 190 km per hour, real and live kicking up plumes of dust and excitement all along the Vantimamidi-Mulugu-Narsampalli stretch in neighbouring Medak district as a part of the Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Club's Deccan rally.

And a million times more intense than what they are on the telly. As the incessant drone of the mean machines pierced the morning stillness, the rural hinterlands woke up to the motorcar raga! Children and the older ones, waking up from their sleep, walked out of barns by the roadside and modest homes in sleepy hamlets. At some places, the crowd was elbow-to-elbow rubbing its eyes in disbelief and gazing at the speed kings in awe.

Appetite for speed

What fuels this unquenchable appetite for the road and speed? Ask the road kings themselves. "I've been to F1 races abroad for the past four years but nothing can beat the thrill of watching the mean machines hurtle past you from so close. It's terrifying yet much more exhilarating than the ones ripping on the F1circuit," exclaims Sagar Raju, representative of ESPN Star Sports for Telangana and a keen motorcar enthusiast himself.

"It is the exhilaration of moving at this great speed, the excitement of the moment allaying all sense of fear. Call us chronic speed maniacs," smile motor enthusiasts Nikhil and Mazda, tired from the day-out in the dusty terrain of Mulug.

"The route had different terrains -- twisting ones to test the driving skills, straight stretches to check the vehicle endurance and rough patches to gauge the vehicle suspension and tyres. And the participants had great fun," says deputy clerk of the rally G. Ravindra Mudiraj.

And yes, the secret lay in the metal and mechanical rhythm of the machine and mettle in the hands that drove it! Indeed, a perfect symphony of man and machine.

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