Almost a year ago KAMAZ-master team introduced a new conventional truck, created on the ground of КАМАZ-4326 chassis. This revolutionary development was motivated by last trend of off-road race discipline development: main rivals of the team, performing on conventional trucks, show its benefits especially on fast special stages of rally-marathons.
Obviously, the new conventional truck has a range of benefits and gives more possibilities for technical modernization in conditions of often changing regulations of Dakar, the main rally-marathon of the discipline. It does not matter how ambitious the project is, it is important to understand that launch of a new race truck always takes a long time for development, searching for solutions, fixing stable result. Therefore only a year after announcement of its creation, KAMAZ-master sent the truck for serious tests for the first time – to the second round of the Russian Championship for cross-country rallies Gold of Kagan-2016. Eduard Nikolaev and his crew, who are traditionally first to test new technologies, toed the starting line behind a wheel of the new conventional truck in unusual color for the team – monochrome matt black. That different design of new KAMAZ immediately engaged all eyes, standing out among familiar blue armada. A lot of people tried to guess why the team decided to make such a decision, and now it is time to explain.
Владимир Чагин, руководитель команды «КАМАЗ-мастер»:
“Birth of conventional race truck is an important period and milestone for KAMAZ-master team.” We have always tried to create best, reliable and competitive trucks, complying with constantly changing requirements of the discipline. KAMAZ-master race trucks have always been changed on the form and content. For example, one can hardly remember when it used to be a three-axis truck. Now a new era of race trucks begins – conventional trucks show a range of benefits, and this season they have to carry out a very important task – to test the truck for the maximum, in order to prepare for the main sports event – next Dakar. We put high hopes for the conventional truck and this new different monochrome design, offered by our partners of Red Bull, lays emphasis on status and “aggressive” character of this new vehicle. The idea of such design is very unusual for our Blue Armada team, as fans call it. The new truck stands out among bright “elder brothers”, but this project has a long history, and we continue the tradition of world motorsport. Recently the tendency of black-and-white testing vehicles has been noticed - in Formula 1, WRC, Le Mans and even Moto GP motorbikes. Do you remember what furor was caused by color of Red Bull Racing bolide on winter tests in Xeres, 2015? Then during announcement of Pegeot team about their coming back to Dakar they introduced their buggy of carbonic color. That is why we supported the idea of Red Bull to introduce the truck right in such an unusual monochrome design for the testing period. The vehicle looks in an innovative and a bit aggressive way and keys up to make it a leader in the truck category.”
