Trick in the dunes was not realized: Nikolaev won the sixth stage of the Silk Way rally

The first circular stage of the 14th edition of the Silk Way rally marathon took place in the town of Khovd. The settlement at the foot of the Altai Mountains, founded in the XVII century, today has about 30 thousand inhabitants.

During the days of the race the local population celebrates the big national holiday Naadam. And the mechanics of the teams participating in the rally-marathon have no time for rest and entertainment. Mongolian killing tracks make serious demands to the race equipment, and not all trucks arrive from the high-speed special stages to the bivouac in good condition. All five KAMAZ-master crews came to the start of the sixth stage of the Silk Way. For the overnight the mechanics tidied up Andrey Karginov's truck, which had encountered a number of technical problems after the accident at the previous day.

After yesterday's finish on the asphalt, the judges issued Karginov a multi-hour penalization: 5 hours and 12 minutes for being late for time control and 2 hours each for failing to take eight points and a fixed penalty for the special stage. With such losses it is not easy to fight for a high result, and for tactical reasons Karginov's crew started on Wednesday as a fast technician.

Today the first dunes appeared on the route, but before reaching this 15-kilometer section with loose fine-grained sand, it was necessary not to get lost on the fast parallel paths that could take the crew in the wrong direction in an instant.

The fight for the first place in the race is going on tooth-and-nail. After five stages Dmitry Sotnikov was ahead of Sergey Vyazovich by 36 seconds - by the standards of rally-raids such time can hardly be called a lag, when about 2000 combat kilometers are ahead of the participants. Eduard Nikolaev is also close by. This is how the crews of MAZ-SPORTavto and KAMAZ-Master started the 440-kilometer circular special stage. Already to the neutralization zone Sotnikov gained a minute from Vyazovich, and in the dunes the Belarusian surprised with a tactical idea: he waited for his competitor, made a loop and drove in the footsteps of KAMAZ without trying to overtake. At the exit to the road Vyazovich made a cut and stood in front of Sotnikov, not letting him go forward, despite the signals given. In heavy dust, overtaking was an extremely risky maneuver - the red truck was the first to finish, followed by Sotnikov's crew.

The tricks on the track did not help the Belarusian athlete - the best time of the day (4 hours 8 minutes) was shown by Eduard Nikolaev. Sotnikov had the second result (+2 minutes 35 seconds), Vyazovich closed the top three on the sixth stage with a 5-minute gap.

Dmitry Sotnikov, pilot of crew #303: "Vyazovich started first, Eduard and I were behind him. We did not attack 100%, but slowly approached him. At the first neutralization we played a minute and something, before the dunes we managed to get close to Sergey. He made a loop in the sands and got behind us, he didn't try to overtake us. In the dunes we took a point and then we saw the road. Vyazovich started to cut and in 10-20 meters stood in front of us. We were riding parallel at a close distance from each other, he started shifting to our side, started dusting to create difficulties for us. We started to honk at him, to get away from him. We actually pumped for 3 minutes, it was not quite right of him to do that. And then we had no opportunity to overtake Vyazovich, because the wind changed and in the dust he did not risk and maneuver. We had to let him go for 40 seconds. Many times we signaled him, but there was no reaction. We'll come and look at the telemetry, the signals came through - 100%. I don't understand that reaction. If you're caught up, you have to give way. It's a tight race. Further it is necessary to keep in the rhythm of the race, try to take care of the wheels".

Sergey Vyazovich, pilot of the crew №301: "We were the first. Good fast flat roads, a lot of dust in which it was difficult to approach us, and the task was to get out of the dunes first. But we were wrong, we were overtaken by Dmitry Sotnikov, but we managed to overtake him by the end of the dunes. We drove at our own pace, we understood that we needed to take care of the truck. It was a good day for us.

Eduard Nikolaev, pilot of crew No. 302: "The second day we have a real Dakar, high-speed sections, rocky ones, crossing riverbeds - everything is very good. And speed is good. During the whole day three trucks drove together. In the shaky sands the car had a hard time. We did not lose anything in the dust, we kept at a distance. I know that Sergey Vyazovich did not let Dmitry Sotnikov in. We will come to the bivouac and deal with the situation".

Sergey Kupriyanov rolled into the multi-day marathon properly. Confident pace and reliable piloting allowed him to show his best result at this race - the fourth place. The only stop for the crew was to help Bogdan Karimov, who, like yesterday, had problems with shock absorbers. Kupriyanov gave Karimov his spare part, another one had to be removed from Andrey Karginov's truck. The repair work affected the drivers' time: Karginov lost 50 minutes, Karimov - 55.

Ivan Tatarinov, mechanic of crew #308: "We are improving our pace with each stage. We drive reliably, this is the most important thing for us. Next we are waiting for sands, we are tuning up for them. The most difficult thing was to roll in, to get to know the track, to choose suspension settings. We managed to do all that. Each crew member has to make a quick decision on difficult sections, everyone has his own role, his own task. The main thing is to get into the track, to find the right pressure and piloting, respectively".

Bogdan Karimov, pilot of crew #306: "Not very satisfied with today's day. The first part was very fast, almost all the time at maximum speed. At the 80th kilometer we approached Sergey Kupriyanov, he let us pass. After the neutralization zone we drove away from the road, but on the rolled track. In one of the scour holes we got caught on the right side and all 4 shock absorbers fell apart. We took the spare from Sergey Kupriyanov, Andrey Karginov gave us one more spare part, and the second one was taken off his car. After two days with such breakdowns the desire to drive off-road somehow disappeared".

The rally-marathon has overcome its equator. Dmitry Sotnikov remained the leader of the race, having increased his advantage in the general classification over Sergey Vyazovich to three and a bit minutes. Thanks to Wednesday's result, Eduard Nikolaev came close to the Belarusian. The density remains in other parts of the "Silk Road" scoring table.

On Thursday the caravan of the rally will set off on the route Hovd - Altai. The length of the seventh stage is 512 kilometers, of which 385 kilometers is a high-speed special stage.

Truck standings. The results of the 6th stage

Truck standings. General classification of the 6^th stage