Durgapur, Sep 17 - Heavy rains in the region notwithstanding, the Rally de Kolkata, the third round of the Speed-Indian National Rally Championship, is all set to commence here Friday with 37 competitors in the fray.

Compared to the previous two rounds at Coimbatore and Bangalore that attracted over 60 entries, the Kolkata Rally has suffered in view of the logistics and also considering that a majority of the rallyists hail from southern India.

Nevertheless, the competition is bound to be as razor-sharp as in the earlier outings with Red Rooster Racing and Team MRF in yet another head-to-head confrontation at the top of the grid in their modified Mitsubishi Cedia Lancer cars.

The two teams shared honours in the championship with Red Rooster's Amittrajit Ghosh winning in Coimbatore and Arjun Balu of MRF taking the title in Bangalore.

Both rounds, however, were marred by protests and appeals. In Coimbatore, it was MRF who unsuccessfully protested the grant of 'benefit of time' of 30 seconds to Ghosh that helped him past Arjun Rao Aroor of MRF. In turn, Red Rooster's protest over the air vents in MRF car bonnets was thrown out, but they appealed.