The 6th stage of the Championship of Russia on rally-raid "Velikaya Step - Don" started In Volgograd. "KAMAZ-master" team takes part in competition by three crews: №301 Dmitry Sotnikov, Igor Devyatkin, Ruslan Akhmadeev; № 302 Sergey Kupriyanov, Alexander Kupriyanov, Anatoly Tanin; №303 Anton Shibalov, Andrey Mokeev, Almaz Khisamiyev.
On September, 19 participants of the rally took the first challenge of the difficult Volgograd route. In the program of the day there were two special stages of 282 and 146 kilometer long respectively. Fast winding dirt roads of the first SS almost immediately gave way to sands, and brought crews to the local landscape anomaly - Archedinsko-Donskoy sandy massif.
The character of the second special stage looked like a classic rally route; the route was laid on solid steppe dirt roads, where the accurate and fast work of navigators who had to find the right direction in the intricacies of the plurality of steppe roads was important.
Preparation of "KAMAZ-master" team for the Dakar 2016 enters in its final stage. It remains 3 months prior to the start of the South American rally. Therefore the team considers starts in Volgograd as very important. The pace with which the KAMAZ crews passed a distance of the first day of competition was confirmation to it. This uncompromising approach to training period before Dakar makes from "KAMAZ-master" team involuntary newsmakers in the discipline of rally-raids in the past two weeks. Let’s remind that due to rollover during the test of suspension the new conventional truck of "KAMAZ-master" team could not go to the race in Volgograd. And today's picture of Archeda sands, where Dmitry Sotnikov's car stands perpendicular (speaking the rally language "got on candle", but did not turn over), will break records on viewings on the Internet (compete with them perhaps can only the crew of Sergey Kupriyanov, who brought to the finish the thick wooden branch punched through the cabin of his car). Non-standard landing on the front of the car cost to Dmitry Sotnikov’s crew 40 minutes. The crew of Anton Shibalov came to the rescue and helped him to put his "KAMAZ" on wheels.
Despite seven minutes lost while helping teammates, the crew of Anton Shibalov became the leader of the race in "Trucks" category at the end of the day (5:24:43).
Sergey Kupriyanov showed the second result driving steadily and reliably (5:46:08). His crew within a joint project of "KAMAZ-master" team, OJSC "Gazprom" and VTB Bank acts on gas-diesel "KAMAZ-4326". Dmitry Sotnikov's crew finished the stage with a time of 06 hours 12 minutes 54 sec.
Citation
Dmitry Sotnikov, pilot
"In sands we have tried to "cut "and not to go on a winding path of jeeps which passed ahead. One of dunes seemed innocuous but turned out very insidious. Our car nestled in loose sand hill at the outlet of the hillock. Because of this the car remained in the unnatural vertical position. The impact was soft, but it is not very pleasant when glass cracks and the wheel approaches to you. Anton Shibalov’s crew helped us to put the car on the wheels; we corrected the steering wheel, broke the glass, and wearing glasses continued the race. "
Sergey Kupriyanov, a pilot
"We passed a whole route rather well. The main problems were related to the fact that due to tight work schedule it was impossible seriously prepare for the competition. I arrived in Volgograd at the last moment, and almost from the plane I sat behind the wheel. For the first time, by the way, after the July race in Kalmykia. However, we are trying to keep pace during the whole stage. We didn't make critical mistakes. Already at the first SS there was a technical problem - when we braked actively the engine stalled. This is a known problem for this engine. The way of malfunction repair is also known. Our expert on Tutaev engines explained me this later. The problem was aggravated by the fact that when braking before the turn because of stalled engine power steering switched-off. Because of that, at high speed it was hard to negotiate the corner and at some point we run into a small tree and finished the stage in the conditions of limited visibility due to a broken windshield. "
