On June 16, at the press tour of the Russian state media in Naberezhnye Chelny were announced the crews of the team that would take part in the July race.
The team's drivers Eduard Nikolaev and Andrey Karginov ran test drives for the media representatives on the training track, where journalists had the opportunity to become passengers of the team’s brand new sports truck of the K5 family. After the tests, media representatives moved to KAMAZ-master sports center and witnessed hard work of the production shop, preparing sports trucks to Astrakhan.
The competition will be held from 6 to 16 July. The rally route, consisting of 10 stages, was laid across the territory of Russia with a start in Astrakhan and a finish in Moscow. The racing track will include several regions of our country at once. And the Republic of Dagestan and the Chechen Republic will host the rally-raid competition for the first time in the modern motor sport history. The geography of the route is rich in a variety of terrain - from Astrakhan sands to mountainous special stages in the Caucasus. The teams "MAZ-SPORTauto", "GAZ Raid Sport" are planning to take part in the truck category - the fans will definitely not be bored.
Four crews of KAMAZ-master team will take part in the truck category of the rally:
1. Dmitry Sotnikov - Ruslan Akhmadeev - Ilgiz Akhmetzianov
2. Eduard Nikolaev - Evgeny Iakovlev - Bogdan Karimov
3. Andrey Karginov - Andrey Mokeev - Ivan Malkov
4. Sergey Kupriianov - Aleksandr Kupriianov - Sergei Krenev
Eduard Nikolaev and Dmitry Sotnikov will drive new KAMAZ-435091 trucks of the K5 family. The crew of Andrey Karginov will perform on the time-proven KAMAZ-43509. Also, the off-road will be challenged by the crew of Sergey Kuprianov, who will perform on KAMAZ truck that uses a gas-diesel mixture as fuel.
Recall that the reigning winner of the Silk Way Rally in the truck classification is the crew of Dmitry Sotnikov.
“The Dakar Rally 2022, the training in the Astrakhan region in May and the Archeda Baja in Volgograd gave the team many different technical ideas that are actively implemented,” said Sergei Savostin, the team’s deputy director for production and development.
- Each car on the Silk Way will have its own challenges, it is important to study and test as many engineering solutions as possible. The route from Astrakhan to Moscow will show what innovations will remain and will be introduced in the future.
At the end of the Dakar 2022, the scope of work aimed at improving the dynamic properties and increasing reliability of the trucks was determined.
Many solutions have already been tested at the second stage of the Russian Rally Raid Championship in the Volgograd region and at additional tests of the team on the Astrakhan tracks. The relief and nature of these "home ranges" is the best suitable for testing trucks and crews for endurance.
Some design changes have been made in the elements of engine systems. In particular, the team has done works on boost air cooling systems. The geometry of airways has been changed to reduce the impact of dynamic movements on flexible elements during vehicle movement, which increases reliability of the system as a whole. It has also been tested with a different type of the cooler itself, which reduces the weight of the system by 15 kg and frees up space above the engine for more optimal placement of other systems. Currently, there are some efficiency questions, so the refinement is planned after the SWR, in order not to get any trouble during the race.
Changes aimed at resource and reliability increase, also affected elements of the exhaust gas bypass system. At the same time, work is underway to master and develop technologies for replacing some imported components. Also, adjustments have been made to the traction and dynamic characteristics of the engine itself. The team managed to test the new settings on viscous sand. There is confidence that the truck will show itself even better on such terrain.
Good work was done to improve the smoothness of the suspension. At the same time, technologies of own production are mastered and new manufacturers are involved in the manufacture of various suspension parts. A vivid example is successful work with domestic sports springs, which favorably affects both the financial component and the speed of making changes to the suspension settings. As part of the program to change the weight and inertia characteristics of the truck, parts and assemblies are being developed, experiments are ongoing with various grades of steel, coatings, processing methods for a better balance of strength and minimum weight. Such work allows the team to always be in a good shape and apply the most modern methods of design and production.
Thus, preparations for the Silk Way Rally began almost immediately after the team returned from the Dakar. By the start of the Archeda Baja, which took place on May 19-22 in the Volgograd region, the third sports truck of the K5 family was manufactured in the production workshop of the team.
As part of a joint project with Gazprom, a new gas-and-diesel truck was built, which will be used by the crew of Sergey Kupriianov. In May, the truck was tested in the sports run-in mode.
The team actively promotes import substitution processes. Work continues on long-term strategic projects. In March, a meeting was held with the Chairman of the Management Board of Gazprom, A.B. Miller. It was about creation of sports trucks with power units on alternative energy sources.
The route of the rally, consisting of 10 stages, is laid across the territory of Russia with a start in Astrakhan and a finish in Moscow. The sports track will include several regions of the Russian Federation at once. And the Republic of Dagestan and the Chechen Republic will host rally-raid competitions for the first time in the modern motor sport history.
The total length of the competition route will be 4,500 kilometers, 2,800 of which are sports special stages. On July 16, the winners of the race will solemnly cross the finish podium in Moscow.
Pre-launch events of the rally - administrative checks and scrutenenering - are scheduled for July 6th. The starting podium will take place in Astrakhan on July 7, after passing a short qualifying high-speed section, which is laid in the city on the banks of the Volga River.
