April 22, it is the third day of the rally-raid “Zoloto Kagana” and the track of the race led to the south. The duration of the stage was 430 km. It was two equal circles of 215 km each, where it was allowed to have an hour of service between the participants. Taking into account the type of Astrakhan tracks, it was useful for trucks’ maintenance and little of time-out for athletes.
The KAMAZ-master team has decided to take with maximum rational approach. Nobody was not going to save strength, of course, but to economize strengths it was decided to use previously in service separate units and assemblies, and it was decided to drive on yesterday’s tyres. There was the reason why we had to stop in order to change tyres practically at all crews of the KAMAZ-master team and the struts of shock absorbers at the truck of Eduard Nikolaev and Bogdan Karimov run out.
Dmitry Sotnikov’s wheel began disassembling to rubber pieces, tyre blocks and the cord damaged the enclosure of oil filter. It became the reason of oil loosing, but fortunately, the accident happened not far from the finish of the first circle of the special stage, the crew could finish and the service group fixed quickly the problem.
After yesterday’s fatal breaking of the frame and many hours of penalty, Belorussian athlete Sergei Vyazovich started today at the special stage and in a technical mode, without passing the whole race track, picked up control navigation points. It is seen that MAZ-SPORTavto has a serious attitude for the season, intending to take a minimum of points for the race and to gain revenge at the future starts.
Evgeny Yakovlev, co-pilot of Eduard Nikolaev's crew said after the finish: “The track was very interesting and intense, fast enough. A lot of good winding paths, good, dynamic navigation. It's easier today in terms of fitness, yesterday it was just a killer. Today is a very good special stage, everyone liked it, and in general we are the first time on this territory, from the south of the highway Astrakhan - Elista, we traveled earlier to these regions, but we did not enter this territory. Not without adventures, though. All our crews today, unfortunately, lost time due to technical reasons. Punctured wheels, broken shock absorber, blown wheels. In general, the day was very intense and very rallying”.
Dmitry Nikitin, co-pilot of Bogdan Karimov's crew, told about the vicissitudes: “The day was very difficult. High-speed tracks, interesting navigation. We started very well, we thought that today everything will work out. But unfortunately our expectations were not realized. It happens, it's a sport. A shock absorber broke, the right rear wheel exploded. We lost a lot of time to fix these faults. Then we tried to add pace to almost the whole special stage and win back the lost time to the maximum, but 50 kilometers before the finish of the first lap the front right wheel exploded, we could hardly keep the truck. After we changed the second wheel, we realized that there was no more chance for a risk, the task remained to drive to the finish line at a calm pace, to bring the car intact. During the service between today's two special stages we fixed the truck and on the second circle the goal was to “bring” the result to the finish, to keep the time we managed to earn today. We don't lose hope, tomorrow is still a full special stage. I hope that everything will work out in the best possible way”.
As it was said above, the crews drove the same circle twice. The second time they were more cautious and avoided problems. As a prove – the best time in Absolute the crew of Dmitry Sotnikov showed. If for the first time he spent 2 hours and 46 minutes for passing 214 km, then the second time he made it for 2 hours and 5 minutes, overrunning traditionally more fast participants at SUV.
Dmitry Sotnikov was upset of the first part of the distance after the finish: “Today Special Stage differs from the previous one. Two circles of 214 km each. Fast, speedy Special Stage, at some places with navigation, crossing by dunes and these are accompanied by problems with wheels. The wheels did not sustain heat and speed and they exploded, our crew is not exclusion. The front wheel exploded, the oil filter was damaged and we lost half an hour to repair it and to change the wheel. At the service point we had a repairing and we passed the second part without any stop”.
According to the sum of time on two today's special stages, Andrey Karginov topped the standing of truck classification. He also displaced Bogdan Karimov, who was leading yesterday, from the first place in the general classification. E. Nikolaev's crew loses only 1 min 45 seconds to A. Karginov, and D. Sotnikov's crew is on the third place (+07:35). The gap between B. Karimov and the leader is 34 minutes and 37 seconds.
STAGE 3 RESULTS
1 303 CARGINOV A. KAMAZ-MASTER 4:40:06
2 304 NIKOLAEV E. KAMAZ-MASTER +07:17
3 302 SOTNIKOV D. KAMAZ-MASTER +11:37
4 305 KARIMOV B. KAMAZ-MASTER +44:38
5 306 NAIMAN Y. URAL MOTORSPORT +1:31:15
6 309 FILIAKIN A. GAZ RAID SPORT +21:57:12
7 301 VYAZOVICH S. MAZ-SPORTAUTO +29:28:20
8 308 SHKLYAEV M. GAZ RAID SPORT +45:19:54
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION Based on the results of the 3rd stage (first five)
1 303 A. KARGINOV KAMAZ-MASTER 9:14:45
2 304 NIKOLAEV E. KAMAZ-MASTER +01:45
3 302 SOTNIKOV D. KAMAZ-MASTER +07:35
4 305 KARIMOV B. KAMAZ-MASTER +34:37
5 306 NAIMAN Y. URAL MOTORSPORT +2:20:14
