Getting high with the Renault Duster: Driving to the highest rally stage in Maharashtra
Life in the fast lane with the Renault Duster
Adrenaline rush. A physical feeling of intense excitement and stimulation caused by the release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands. That’s how the dictionary describes it. Picture this: You. Petrolhead. Renault Duster. More than four grudging hours on the highway. You see something in the distance. A small road leading up to a massive mountain. You take the detour. Foot planted, until you come across the first corner. The road disappears. There’s only grit and gravel. Suddenly, you feel a rush of energy, and time slows down. That surge of function and intensity brought on by the situation?
That’s fight-or-flight adrenaline – the same hormone you feel when your Ed comes striding furiously toward you asking if you’re done with your articles. After the release of adrenaline, the immediate surge of it makes you more alert, enhances your reaction time, and sends blood to the major organs and muscles. You instinctively reach for the handbrake and the rear slides out leaving behind a cloud of dust, while the Duster holds its line perfectly. After the first corner, you let out a manic laugh and feel pumped up to take on whatever comes next. You fully place your trust in the car. It doesn’t let you down.
“You instinctively reach for the handbrake and the rear slides out leaving behind a cloud of dust, while the Duster holds its line perfectly”
But that was not the plan at all This Getting High with the Duster series has taken us to some crazy places. From the highest fuel station, to the highest tea plantation, Renault’s SUV has done it all. So naturally, the plan was to do something similar this time around. Instructions were pretty clear. We’d visit the highest rally stage in Maharashtra which lies alongside an array of windmills. From the windmills, you could overlook Kalsubai, the highest peak in the state. The place we were headed to is called Konkanwadi, in Nashik, and the drive was to cover a healthy 250 odd kilometres.
With the game plan set, we were on our way at the crack of dawn. This time at our disposal was the Duster Easy-R AMT variant. And boy was I glad to have an automatic in my hands. Allow me to explain. Pune is a city where, quite recently, the vehicle density surpassed its human population. No joke. And with that statistic comes burdensome traffic jams. The exclusion of my left foot constantly having to depress the clutch pedal left me pretty unwinded and chilled out during the whole getting-out-of-the-city part of our drive. On the outskirts is where we first stopped for some grub.
The newly done Pune-Nashik highway stretch
The end of the city meant it was time for a long stretch of highway and Aniruddha, our in house motorsport guy, had really hyped up the Pune-Nashik highway. In fact, he had stuck his neck out and called it better than the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Sigh. How my hopes were shattered. The road was one of the most infuriating ones I’ve driven on. You pass a toll-booth, and the roads turn pleasant and large, putting a smile on your face.
And then just after a kilometre or two, you get bottlenecked into a single-lane “road” smothered with maddening three-bump speedbreakers and innumerable potholes. What was even more irksome was that the pattern followed for more than 40 kilometres! Highway, narrow road. Highway, narrow road. Arghh! The only thing that kept me sane was the supple ride quality of the Duster. It eats up undulations for breakfast and potholes for dessert. And inside the cabin, you’re not disrupted with a clamorous thud every time the suspension takes care of its duties.
“The only thing that kept me sane was the supple ride quality of the Duster, it eats up undulations for breakfast and potholes for dessert”
It was after the first 40 kilometres that the real highway started and I could finally test what the 1.5-litre 108bhp diesel motor has on offer. Well, it’s safe to say that it does not disappoint. Even with four people and considerable luggage on board, the SUV showed no signs of asphyxiation. The mythical lead-footed, bald creature called Abhishek was in the car with us. And he wanted to have a go at the Duster.
Duster holds itself really well inspite driven spiritedly in ghats
Deathly terrified of what he’d do if I refuse, I quietly pulled over right before a ghat and scurried along to the passenger seat. And the legends hold true. Because as soon as he slotted the gearbox into Drive, his right foot stabbed the accelerator paddle to the last millimetre of its travel. Through the entire ghat section, we swayed on our seats like the pendulum of a metronome, and while we held on to dear life, the Duster felt unbothered by his antics. The section finally came to an end and Abhishek let out a contented grunt (which meant that he liked the car too).
Our exit from the highway soon arrived, and we came across a tree-tunnelled village road, which is my favourite kind of road! A few clicks here and there, and we were on our way again.
“Through the entire ghat section, we swayed on our seats like the pendulum of a metronome, and while we held on to dear life, the Duster felt unbothered by his antics”
In the distance, I could see the windmills we travelled the distance for. Now except Rohit, our photographer, none of us had ever seen windmills before. So the excitement levels were similar to what it was 10 years ago when my parents got me that paper windmill toy in a fair. And we noticed a small road leading up to a massive mountain, atop which came the first set of windmills in the area. Naturally, we were excited but we were still 20 kilometres away from our planned location. After a few minutes of pondering, a unanimous decision was made to scale the mountain.
Playing around with the Renault Duster
With the gearbox slotted into manual, I put my foot down. Once I got into the boost zone, the SUV quickly gained momentum. 245Nm hitting at a very early 1750rpm mark transformed the Duster into a pro hiker. The first gravel-filled corner was approaching fast and with my blood riddled with adrenaline, I yanked the handbrake and the rear slid out beautifully, like you see in the movies in slow- mo, while the ESP interevened to make sure I never left the line. There were some tricky portions in the rally stage-esque trail we’d just discovered, where the soil just gave way as soon as you put some weight onto it.
And that was quite a worry since this was a FWD variant. But our doubts were soon put to rest with the Duster scaling the slopes like a champ. With this newfound confidence, I tackled five more gritty corners at high speeds, after which we had to ascend an RFC-styled off-road section. This is where the 30-degree approach angle and 210mm of ground clearance came into play. The rocks were tackled with ease and crossing that part placed us right below our first windmill.
“The first gravel-filled corner was approaching fast and with my blood riddled with adrenaline, I yanked the handbrake and the rear slid out beautifully”
Complete silence. The only noise you could hear was the blade cutting through the air. All of us stood in awe for a good two minutes with our heads slung backwards. Honestly, it’s quite scary when you see those blades, as tall as a three-storied building, move that fast for the first time. Your brain takes time to comprehend the relation between such a huge object and quick movements. And the view from the top was staggering. All the mountains that surrounded us were dotted with windmills and this was without a doubt one of the most beautiful views I had ever seen. We instantly decided that this is where we’d finish the rest of our shoot.
Once we got used to the view, we spent our time driving around the mountain while Rohit went about his clickety business. And in the car, all I could think about was how pissed our Ed was gonna be after we disobeyed his clear instructions. His idea was that we’d go out there and get high on clean energy. What I got high on instead, was the Thrill of Driving.
