The struggle of a red whirlwind with blue and black – this is how a truck race looks from the side – Reportage

I am very grateful to our co-driver Pavel Garanin, who at such an extreme pace did not make a single mistake and even in the end, when the three of us rode together with Mardeev and Karginov, he managed to beat them. This is his merit, and not only today, but throughout the race. For example, yesterday, when we went first, he did a good job – I couldn’t keep up the pace, because we were “opener” and you couldn’t see much in the grass, but Pavel didn’t make any mistakes, and this played a key role in the race.

Following two KamAZ trucks in the standings are GAZ Sadko Next trucks.

We performed well, all the cars came to the finish line, – said Mikhail Shklyaev, head of the cargo department of the GAZ Reid Sport team, – The main feature of our equipment is that we drive serial cars. Yes, they have been modified and partially rebuilt. But all components and assemblies are serial. This is the principled position of the Gorky Automobile Plant. For us, racing is a test of our cars in combat. At the rally, we test cars for strength, check the correctness of new engineering solutions. In terms of power supply, GAZ Sadko Next lags behind sports cars KAMAZ Master and MAZ Sport-auto, but there is a different story: cars have little in common with production cars. Now we will prepare trucks for the Archeda race. It will be held in the Volgograd region on May 18–21. This is the Russian Cup, its status is lower than the Russian Championship, but last year the top Dakar raced there – we are not allowed to participate in international competitions, so the strongest crews go to the Russian Cup.