Last Saturday, the crews of the racing team KAMAZ-master started their way to Astrakhan where the international rally Silk Way is to launch on the sixth of July.
Eduard Nikolaev and Dmitry Sotnikov will pilot new racing trucks KAMAZ-435091 of the K5 line. Andrey Karginov’s crew will drive the time-tested model KAMAZ-43509. Besides, impassability will be challenged by the crew of Sergey Kupriyanov who will perform on a KAMAZ truck fueled by gas and diesel mixture. It should be recalled that the reigning winner of the Silk Way Rally among truck racers is Dmitry Sotnikov’s crew.
The rally Dakar 2022, as well as test rides in Astrakhan Oblast and the Archeda Baja held in May gave the team many different technical ideas for implementation. There were changes in a number of characteristics of the vehicles. Each truck in the Silk Way 2022 will have to undergo its own series of tests. It is important to study and test as many engineering solutions as possible. The route from Astrakhan to Moscow will show what innovations will prove to be good and be applied in the future.
As soon as the team came home from the Dakar, they started preparing for the Silk Way. The third racing truck of the K5 line was made in the team’s production shop for the start of the Archeda Baja held in Volgograd Oblast from May 19 to 22. As part of the joint project with PJSC GAZPROM, a new gas and diesel truck was made to carry Sergey Kupriyanov’s crew. In May, the truck was tested in a racing environment.
The team is supporting imports phase-out. It continues working on long-term strategic projects. The promising activities include the manufacture of racing trucks with power units on alternatives.
Scheduled from July 6 to 16, the 10-stage route of the rally Silk Way 2022 will stretch from Astrakhan to Moscow across Russia. The racing track will tie several Russian regions. And the Republic of Dagestan and the Chechen Republic will for the first time host a rally raid competition. The route is laid on terrain of various types – from Astrakhan sands to mountainous specials of the Caucasus.
The total length of the route is 4,500 kilometers, 2,800 of which are specials. Pre-start events of the rally – administrative and technical checks – are to be held on July 6. The starting podium is planned for July 7 in Astrakhan, after the racers pass a short qualification speedy section in an urban area, on the bank of the Volga River. On the 16th of July, the winners of the race will podium in Moscow.