On the second day of the rally “Great Steppe – Don” two special sections with length of 145 and 169 kilometer awaited the sportsmen. First part of the track was laid on cross-country terrain with plenty of balks, and easy field tracks were changed by barely noticeable ones. Long and dense grass of Volgograd steppes, not burned by the Sun yet, added navigational difficulties and unpleasant surprises to navigators. Therefore, particular vigilance was needed.
Pilots also couldn’t relax, because the second section of the day passed through famous Archedinsky sands. Loose and tricky sand requires a great deal of skill, because it`s only a matter of a few seconds to get stuck there, which can play the decisive role in the final standings.
Airat Mardeev (pilot of crew №300):
“The route is interesting, we remembered previous races on the Volgograd steppes. My very first competitions as a pilot were just in Volgograd. Many places are very familiar. Everything is ok. The navigation was challenging; there were uncertainties in the legend, sometimes very gross. But everyone is in the same conditions, and all this makes the competition more challenging and interesting. There were many puddles… Out of one of these puddles in the forest we were pulling out Boris Gadasin`s crew. There were interesting sandy areas, impassibility, spines… As it should be on rally-raids. Everything was normal for us. In the first sand area we saw Victor Khoroshavcev`s crew and Aleksandr Potapov`s `Niva` standing, probably the guys had technical problems. Everything went excellent for us. The first special section was narrow, not very comfortable for a truck, it was dangerous to cut, we didn`t risk as steppe is unpredictable. You need to know how to drive on such tracks, and for us it is a useful training before the Silk Way Rally and Dakar. On these narrow and curvy tracks you need just imagine, that there is a cliff on the right, a rock on the left, and then you drive well . What about the vehicle? There weren`t problems with it. Suspension and transmission performed well. The only thing is that we had a large fuel consumption. We didn`t expect it. Sand is loose, a lot of sandy tracks and, in general, it is normal”.
Anton Shibalov (pilot of crew №301):
“ We passed the stage without much trouble. Two quite fast special sections. Fords, sands, steppe – usual set of native to our hearts tracks of the Russian South. If the first SS was slightly faster, then the second, sandy, required attention passing the dunes. The past rains made some adjustments to the tactics of passing the route. Many fords turned into decent water barriers, there were mud areas too. I consider it is very important to take part in such competitions. Their schedule disciplines sportsmen in terms of preparing the vehicles; moreover, we want to escape from the production shop to open spaces. Ahead we have transcontinental two-week Silk Way Rally and it`s difficult to overestimate the meaning of such preparatory races as Bakha `Volgograd”.
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