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27 April, Astrakhan
In the Astrakhan region ended the second stage of the Russian Rally Raid Championship "Gold Kagan-2019". The winners of the race were decided by the 290-kilometer special stage of the third final day of the competition. “Big Brother” barchan was the first today’s sand challenge. However, dense after the snowmelt sands almost did not give any problems to the racers. After “Big Brother” the second big sand area became “Africa” dunes, which were to be reached by fast steppe roads. But some parts of the route were laid in courses on hillock areas, following which always was a difficult challenge for trucks, not speaking of the race vehicles of smaller sizes. But still, the main distance of today's special stage was fast steppe roads with jumps and mud holes. Acceleration alternated with constant braking. This route configuration required a good acceleration dynamics from the engines. KAMAZ-master drivers, whose actions today were not submitted to any strict team tactics and everyone of which had a complete blank check at the stage, could show everything they were capable of.
Sergei Kuprianov, a driver of the race KAMAZ, working on a mixture of gas and diesel fuel, noted that, thanks to the high-torque engine the truck coped well with chaotic Astrakhan small dunes, as well as accelerated easily on fast straights. Anton Shibalov’s crew had problems with the high-pressure fuel pump. Fortunately, the breakdown occurred before the service area (it was located on the 175th kilometer of the race route). The stop on the track and then the pump replacement in the service area all together led to the loss of one hour and a half . There were no other breakdowns except for the broken springs on the truck of Eduard Nikolaev, Andrey Karginov and Anton Shibalov.
The best time on the stage was shown by Dmitry Sotnikov’s crew (3 hours 37 minutes 57 seconds). Eduard Nikolaev could play back a bit more than a minute from Airat Mardeev, leading in the general classification so far. According to the results of the race, Nikolaev’s crew becomes the best in the truck classification. Dmitry Sotnikov’s crew has the second result. The gap from the leader of only 12 seconds proves the heat of the fight. It should be noted that in the absolute standings KAMAZ crews has miss ahead only the crew of the winner in the car classification Vladimir Vasiliev performing on the race Mini Cooper.
Eventually, four KAMAZ-master representatives (E.Nikolaev - 2nd place, D. Sotnikov - 3rd place, A. Mardeev - 4th place, A. Karginov - 7th place) got in the Top-10 of the race results. It should be noted that the first place in the SSV category (and the ninth place in the overall of the race) was taken by another crew from Naberezhnye Chelny, Igor Chagin - Ivan Bezdenezhnykh, performing in the car category on the buggy MAVERICK X3.
Quotes
Eduard Nikolaev, pilot of crew No 300
“Gold of Kagan-2019” for us is basically a starting point in the annual competition calendar. This journey is important in terms of working out of technical novelties determined by January Dakar. The past three days have shown that three months after South America did not pass in vain. Engineers and mechanics did a great job. We are satisfied with the tests. Our crew is also happy with the victory, even with so as it seems local one. All crews of our team are still the top level in rally-raid discipline. And we were pleased to show a good result. ”
Dmitry Sotnikov, pilot of crew No 302
“All leaders in the overall were ahead after the start and it was an advantage for us to see what kind of struggle was in front of us. We started in 2 minutes after the crew of Eduard Nikolaev and drove all day behind him. We understood that we were going approximately in one pace. We decided that it would be better to drive closer and keep right behind him, but in the end we caught up with the bonnet truck of Airat Mardeev. Here it became even more interesting for us. The last fifty kilometers were spent in direct struggle with Airat and Eduard. In the general classification, we were 12 seconds short of competition for the first place.”
Sergei Uspensky, pilot of crew №306
“We moved confidently and nonstop. I am very happy and grateful to the whole KAMAZ-master Team, to everyone from the manager to the mechanics for the opportunity to be a part of it and participate in tests of the units. We are preparing for the Silk Way Rally, we collect, as the saying goes, all the iron in a pile. I hope everything will work out.”
Sergei Kuprianov, pilot of crew No 305
“We drove as usually so quickly to avoid some serious mistakes. We always try to drive that way. The navigator, the mechanic never “yiped”, did not shout, then everything was fine. Today, the entire special stage we were driving on gas, nothing smoked, worked well, everything was fine.”
