Four KAMAZ-master crews will take part in the Hills of Russia Baja - the 2nd stage of the Russian Rally Raid Championship in the truck category. The race will take place on September 23-25. Considering that two sports trucks of the team will be driven by young pilots Bogdan Karimov and Igor Chagin, the situation in the truck category looks very intriguing, because three trucks of the Belarusian team MAZ-SPORTauto and three GAZ trucks from GAZ RAID SPORT will come to participate in the Hills of Russia. If we add to this that the crew of the experienced KAMAZ driver Airat Mardeev will start on a completely new bonnet truck that has not been tested yet, then the events in Ulyanovsk will undoubtedly attract attention of the rally raid fans.
Andrey Karginov will perform on a sports truck of the K5 family, the first experience of driving which he got on the Archeda Baja in May this year.
The new bonnet KAMAZ promises to be the main newsmaker of this race. Airat Mardeev, who oversaw production of the new truck, said: “This is the second edition of the bonnet truck. The first one has also been modified many times. Moreover, many alterations in it were cardinal. In the new truck, we initially took into account our previous mistakes. Visually, many fans will not be able to distinguish between these two vehicles, but the new one turned out much more obedient in driving, it has a better suspension, weight distribution and other parameters. Our first tests showed that the truck has excellent dynamic characteristics. Three racing days in the Ulyanovsk region, and the total length of the special stages - 650 kilometers will allow to test it in a sport mode.
Attention of engineers and mechanics of the team will be focused mainly on the bonnet truck, but not only. Quite a lot of new technical solutions have been applied on the truck of the K5 family of Andrey Karginov.
In addition to engineering and technical tasks, there will be a lot of mentoring work at the race. For Bogdan Karimov this race will not be the first behind the wheel of a KAMAZ, but for Igor Chagin, the Ulyanovsk Baja will become a debut in a competition on KAMAZ. Both crews include experienced athletes: co-driver Evgeny Iakovlev and mechanic Sergey Krenev in Karimov's crew and co-driver Ruslan Akhmadeev and mechanic Vladimir Rybakov in the truck with Chagin. Of course, such a neighborhood in the cockpit for the young KAMAZ-master drivers will be very useful.
The crews of the KAMAZ-master team on the Baja "Hills of Russia"
301 Andrey Karginov (driver), Dmitry Nikitin (co-driver), Ivan Malkov (mechanic)
303 Airat Mardeev (driver), Albert Arslanov (co-driver), Vadim Akhmetov (mechanic)
305 Karimov Bogdan (driver), Evgeny Iakovlev (co-driver), Sergey Krenev (mechanic)
307 Igor Chagin (driver), Ruslan Akhmadeev (co-driver), Vladimir Rybakov (mechanic)
Competition program:
23 September
08:00-13:00 Administrative checks
08:00-13:30 Scruteneering
13:30 Pre-launch press conference
16:00 Grand opening, Kart Hall
16:30 Start of the 1st stage (includes SSS of about 20 km, liaison of about 15 km)
16:45 Finish of the first crew at the 1st stage (approximately)
from 16:45 Service Park (approximately)
20:00 Compulsory briefing, selection of starting positions for the first ten participants based on the results of the SSS
21:00 Publication of the starting list of the 2nd stage
September 24
8:00 Start of the 2nd stage / Service exit (for the 1st crew)
09:00 Start of SS2 (for the 1st crew)
11:00 Finish of SS2 (approximately for the 1st crew)
12:00 Start of SS3 (approximately for the 1st crew)
14:20 Finish of SS3 (approximately for the 1st crew)
15:50 Finish of the 2nd stage / service park (approximately for the 1st crew)
21:00 Publication of the starting list of the 3rd stage
September 25
8:00 Start of the 3rd stage / Service exit (for the 1st crew)
09:30 Start of SS4 (for the 1st crew)
11:30 Finish of SS4 (approximately for the 1st crew)
12:00 SS5 start (approximately for the 1st participant)
13:00 Finish of SS5 (approximately for the 1st participant)
from 13:00 Finish of the 3rd stage / Closed park (approximately for the 1st crew)
19:00 Publication of preliminary final classification
19:30 Publication of the final classification
19:30 Press conference
20:00 Award ceremony
