The fourth stage of Russian Championship of rally-raids "Velikaya Step" began July 1 on route Elista-Astrakhan. The program of the rally-raid will include four racing days. The first day participants passed obligatory checks, after that there was a solemn start at the central square of Elista, and then a qualification prologue passed in the area of the famous City Chess. 60 crews, including 24 SUVs, 11 trucks and 25 participants on bikes, quads and buggies participate in the race. In trucks category except "KAMAZ-master" team, crews of "MAZ-SportAvto" team and "GAZ-Raid Sport" team will take part in the race.
From "KAMAZ-master" team there will be 6 sports crews:
№301 Sotnikov Dmitry; Devyatkin Igor; Akhmadeev Ruslan
№303 Mardeev Ayrat; Belyaev Aydar; Svistunov Dmitry
№304 Shibalov Anton; Amatych Robert; Khisamiev Almaz
№305 Kupriyanov Sergey; Kupriyanov Alexander; Tanin Anatoly.
№306 Karginov Andrey; Mokeev Andrey; Leonov Igor
№307 Nikolayev Eduard; Yakovlev Evgeny; Rybakov Vladimir
Power balance following the results of a short 3,9 kilometers prologue became already quite habitual for the Championship of Russia: trucks took the top part of the table in overall classification. The best result at Belarusian Sergey Vyazovich (MAZ-SPORTavto) - 00:03:16. Eduard Nikolaev's crew conceded four seconds to him, then there are Andrey Karginov (+00:00:11), Ayrat Mardeev (+00:00:17), Dmitry Sotnikov (+00:00:19), Anton Shibalov's crews (+00:00:21). Only after Anton Shibalov there is the first crew on the SUV: Dmitry Iyevlev – the eighth (+00:00:24). One more "KAMAZ-master" crew - gas-diesel "KAMAZ" under control of Sergey Kupriyanov was the fourteenth, having conceded to the leader of day 41 seconds.
According to the competition regulations, the first ten leaders of a stage had the right to choose the starting position for tomorrow at the evening briefing. For the first time such innovation has been tested at the Russian Championship last year, and its essence is to provide leaders with an opportunity to decide whether to go ahead of everyone, without seeing traces of the crews which passed ahead and solve navigation tasks "without prompting". Participants consider such a scheme is fairer than, for example, at "Dakar", where the winner of a stage will automatically become the first in the starting list of the next stage. Best in the prologue Sergey Vyazovich chose the first starting position for the next day.
In the following three days, the crews will pass full-fledged marathon special stages with a daily average distance of 300-400 kilometers:
July 2, 2nd stage: liaison - 17,5 km, SS2 - 321 km, liaison – 7 km
July 3, 3rd stage: liaison - 7 km, SS3 – 457 km, liaison – about 25 km
July 4, 4th stage: liaison – 30 km, SS4 – 260 (+/-10 km), liaison 15 km.
Total length of a route will make about 1160 km, including 1042 km of special stages. Organizers of the race promise that the route of this year is seriously updated and will surprise participants. In particular several absolutely new sandy sections are added to the fourth stage of rally.
The solemn finish and rewarding will take place on July, 4 at walls of the Astrakhan Kremlin.
Vladimir Chagin: "Stages of the Russian Championship is a great opportunity for us to communicate with Russian fans and show them our equipment. It is always a pleasure, it's a good energy and it charges us. During the rally-raid new technical solutions in the cars of the team will be tested, team-work of crews’ members will be worked out. Unfortunately, it is impossible to test our new bonneted car in race conditions. The crew of Eduard Nikolaev had to test it. But due to questions that have arisen with six-cylinder engine, for the first time used by team, it was decided that it is preferable to leave it in the sports center in Naberezhnye Chelny, in order to carry out fine-tuning of the engine in stationary conditions on our engine test station. Eduard Nikolaev participates in the race "Velikaya Step" on his cabover truck familiar to all fans".
Eduard Nikolaev, "At night before the start there was a heavy rain. The route of the prologue was very greasy in some places. The peculiarity of the local soil is that it is clayey and do not absorb water. Our tires are designed for dry, sandy surfaces, fast desert and mountain roads." In the steppe, where there is more space for maneuver it is possible to go after the rain at high speed, but here at the route of prologue where there are a lot of turns and you can’t move down from the road we had to pass fast turns that is called "whisper".
Dmitry Sotnikov: "There will be hot days. Both literally and figuratively. In the steppe the air temperature reaches +40C. A difficult test for the equipment, but for people it will be more difficult. Readiness of crews for a heat, water supplies, physical endurance - all this play center stage! "
