On 12 April in Astrakhan started 2 stage of Russian Rally-Raid Championship, 1 stage of Russian Rally-Raid Cup in T3 and T4 categories - a traditional race along Astrakhan region – “Gold of Kagan”. The competition will take three days: first day is an opening ceremony and prologue, next two days participants will have to overcome long speed sections. Distance of speed sections will be mapped on the right bank of the Volga River, and bivouac will be traditionally set near “Azimut” Hotel.
This year the competition is one day shorter, but in the meantime increased the number of race kilometers, that crews will have to overcome: on 13 and 14 April pilots will drive 342 and 263 km respectively, during three days the pilots will have to get over 800 km of the total route, with the race distance of 613 kilometers.
Participating in the pre-start conference Vladimir Chagin described “Gold of Kagan” Rally as a kind of rehearsal of Silk Way Rally-2018 Astrakhan part of (the race will come here in July).
For trucks “Gold of Kagan” is a first competition in the national motorsport season. KAMAZ-master Team traditionally uses spring starts to check technical innovations after January Dakar. But these are not just training and tests: interest to “Gold of Kagan” is added by the fact, that sportsmen from “MAZ-SPORTauto” come to compete for prize places in Astrakhan as well. As a reminder, this year the Belorussian team leader Siarhei Viazovich won silver in the truck category on the South American race.
4 KAMAZ-master crews compete in Gold of Kagan:
300 NIKOLAEV Eduard-YAKOVLEV Evgeny-RYBAKOV Vladimir
301 KARGINOV Andrey-МОКЕЕV Andrey –LEONOV Igor
303 SOTNIKOV Dmitry-NIKITIN Dmitry-MUSTAFIN Ilnur
304 SHIBALOV Anton-KUPRIANOV Aleksandr-SVISTUNOV Dmitry
Within joint program with PJSC Gazprom and VTB bank new race gas-and-diesel truck with 16-liter engine (earlier in this project was used engine with volume of 18 liters). It will be tested by pilots Anton Shibalov and Sergey Kuprianov (due to his busyness on a responsible position in Gazprom, Sergey Kuprianov won’t be able to take part in the full competition program). An absolutely new gas-and-diesel KAMAZ could already impress Astrakhan fans with its new coloring.
One more KAMAZ truck attracts higher attention of specialists and motorsport audience: Eduard Nikolaev will drive a bonnet truck, already familiar to the “Blue Armada” fans. Last big competitions in which this truck took part, was Silk Way Rally-2016. But, due to team-manager Sergey Savostin, now it is an absolutely new truck, in which were improved a lot of units and aggregates - from chassis to modified by the team new in-line six-cylinder engine, that will be used in all race vehicles of Naberezhnye Chelny team starting from Dakar-2019. Such engine installed on the truck of Dmitry Sotnikov has already passed tests by Silk Way Rally-2017 and Dakar-2018. Dmitry’s crew will also continue its development and optimization within the upcoming race in Astrakhan.
One more important for KAMAZ-master event – Andrey Karginov, rehabilitated after last-year trauma, reterns to active competition program.
Generally, for the race start applied in all categories 41 crews. Since morning of 12 April administrative and technical checks awaited them. Then on Lenin’s square in the center of Astrakhan was given a ceremonial start of the race, after which contestants set off to the 8 kilometer prologue, laid on the bank of the Volga River.
On the short special oriented for spectators, Eduard Nikolaev’s crew showed 4th best result in the general standings (00:07:37), letting ahead only car crews. 9th best result was at Siarhei Viazovich (00:07:44), tenth was Dmitry Sotnikov (00:07:49), 15th was Andrey Karginov (00:08:03). Fans in the spectator zone warmly greeted Gubernator of the Astrakhan Region Aleksandr Zhilkin, who became a member of Anton Shibalov’s crew for the prologue. Race stewards estimated such replacement as an hour penalty (regulations will be regulations), but management of KAMAZ-master Team and race organizers went on that intentionally in gratitude for hospitality of Astrakhan citizens and motorsport support in Astrakhan region.
