The Russian KAMAZ-master team triumphantly returned the Champion title in the extreme rally-marathon Dakar. The crew of Eduard Nikolaev became a winner of the Dakar-2017, and the crew of Dmitry Sotnikov “got silver” in the race.
4 KAMAZ-crews took part in the race:
№ 501, Pilot A.Mardeev; co-pilot A.Belyaev; mechanic D.Svistunov.
№505, Pilot E.Nikolaev; co-pilot E.Yakovlev; mechanic V.Rybakov.
№513, Pilot D.Sotnikov; co-pilot R.Akhmadeev; mechanic I.Leonov.
№515, Pilot A.Shibalov; co-pilot R.Amatych; mechanic I.Romanov.
The way of KAMAZ-master Team to the victory was not easy. Dakar is a competition of many strong crews, teams, design-engineers. During 12 stages of the race and 8800 km across valleys, mountains and deserts of Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia KAMAZ-master had to “blunt the attacks” of strong rivals. All in all 50 trucks toed the starting line MAN - 14 , DAF - 6, IVECO - 6, TATRA - 3, KAMAZ - 4 , RENAULT - 3, GINAF - 3, MAZ - 3, HINO 2, LIAZ -1, SCANIA - 2, MERCEDES - 3).
Rivals of KAMAZ-master - IVECO, MAN, TATRA, RENAULT and other teams were seriously prepared to the race. They attracted strong pilots, modernized trucks. Already in the first half of the competition one could see their technological innovations.
Trucks of the rivals were well prepared to tracks in a classical rally style, and there were many of them on the first stages of Dakar. Their trucks were assembled with L6 engines with modern brakes and cut-off max speed systems (electronic system that allows the driver constantly drive with the speed close to allowed by the regulations 140 km per hour) had an advantage on tracks with fast acceleration and braking. At the same time Russian KAMAZ-trucks have always been successful on more traditional extreme routes of Dakar with hard sands and rough terrain, off-road driving in accordance with the course, where suspension travel and torquey V-type engine play an important role. Apart from that, such pilots as Peter Versluis (MAN), Hans Stacey (MAN), Gerard De Rooy (Iveco), Federico Villagra (Iveco), Martin Kolomy (TATRA) have a huge experience in classical rally championships. However, in terms of all that, on first stages KAMAZ crews could minimize the timing lag from Renault, MAN and Iveco teams. The route was complicated with engine work in conditions of poor oxygen on mountainous specials in Bolivia, where KAMAZ-master crews started to catch their rivals up. On impassibility of Altiplano, notwithstanding the fact that engines got hot due to the lack of oxygen, the Russians started a fight to return the Champion title of Dakar. The situation for the assistance team became more difficult due to constant and inexperienced in these areas rains – several bivouacs were flooded with water.
After the second part of the SS before the rest day, the first position in the truck category was taken by the champion of Dakar – the Dutchman Gerard De Rooy (IVECO). With min gap KAMAZ crews of Eduard Nikolaev, Dmitry Sotnikov and Airat Mardeev took second, third and fourth positions respectively. The fast assistance of Anton Shibalov was on seventh position.
Quite dramatic was the marathon stage, during two days of which the crews were cut off assistance teams and in case of any breakdowns could rely only on themselves. Fortunately, the Russian machines didn’t have problems these days. But one of the dangerous river-beds became the reason of Airat Mardeev’s stop. The truck just dug down into the soft, loose and wet sand. The fast assistance of Anton Shibalov stopped to tow his truck out. A few towing rows were torn before the truck was rescued with big efforts and time loss of approximately 2 hours. During this operation, a torn rope hit the rear part of Anton’s truck and broke accumulators. They reached the finish line driving only on generator.
The situation by the 10th stage in the top of the standings showed a tough fight that was unusual even for a faster car category. Only a few minutes separated the rivals of top-3 after almost 7000 km of the route. The race results were pretty much determined on its last stages. As trucks and pilots had almost the same level of preparation, the main factor became navigation skills. And Russian specialists were successful in it. On the 10th stage good navigation skills of the co-pilots Evgeny Yakovlev and Dmitry Sotnikov helped to increase the gap from the nearest rivals up to 19 and 23 minutes respectively.
At the end of Dakar the crew Eduard Nikolaev-Evgeny Yakovlev-Vladimir Rybakov became first and the crew Dmitry Sotnikov-Ruslan Akhmadeev-Igor Leonov took the second position. Gerard De Rooy (IVECO) conquered the third position in this uneasy battle. The crew of Airat Mardeev took the fifth position in the general standings. The fast assistance of Anton Shibalov finished on 19th position. Several times he helped the Russian sportsmen, and not only KAMAZ-master crews. For example, on the pre-last stage he towed the crew of Ravil Maganov (UTV, №378) till the finish line. As a result the crew of R.Maganov became a bronze winner in his class.
In order to keep the Champion title KAMAZ-master need to work hard. They should develop the new bonnet truck, designed and built in the sports-centre of KAMAZ-master. Also in the nearest future the team has to decide with the engine – what engine to use on the bonnet truck and on traditional cab-over-engine trucks, as due to the new Dakar regulations since 2018 the allowed engine volume for trucks will be reduced up to 13 liters.
A kind of rematch rivals of the Russian team are going to give on Silk Way Rally-2017, planned in this July. The race will go on the territories of Russia, Kazakhstan and China. Big variety of routes, all kinds of impassibility – sands, mountains, steppes, etc. – attract sportsmen and promise an interesting and tough fight on this transcontinental marathon.
