Africa Eco Race 2017: Mauritania Checked KAMAZ-master for Stability

11 January 2017

Andrey Karginov's crew is still on the lading position. The pilot is satisfied with versatile African routes.

"The sandy section was small, less than 10 km. To be honest, we expected that the current stage would be very similar to yesterday's one, as the legends were almost the same. But, as it turned out, the section turned out to be completely different. If yesterday it was a normal road with impassable sand, today there have been dunes. They were not big, not small, but medium," said pilot Andrey Karginov.

The sportsman noted that the crew had overcome the stage without problems, although the truck was running at the breaking point, as they say. "It was felt that the sand was sticky, so there was a big load on the engine, transmission," said Andrey Karginov.

Kupriyanov's and Karginov's crews entered the sands together: the sportsmen backed up each other on the difficult section. "The fact is that no one can guarantee that you will get over the sand without any problems," said Karginov.

According to KAMAZ-master Sergey Kupriyanov, the current stage turned out to be successful for his crew and intense at the same time, "Today the temperature in the cockpit was low, +33 deg. C, but it turned out to be a hot stage. We needed to win back time, so we drove as fast as possible, reducing the speed only on visibly difficult sections. We overtook Tomeček pretty quickly, but then there was a very dangerous moment: we did not have enough power to climb a dune, then we began to move downslope and got stuck. The truck was tilted, but it balanced not to overturn because the wheels were in the right direction. Otherwise, we would lay on the side. It worked out well, but, once again, it was a very dangerous moment," said Sergey Kupriyanov.

Kupriyanov also added that he didn't notice the difference between Mauritanian stages of the Africa Eco Race 2017 fr om similar sections of the rally-marathon in 2016 and 2015.

"The sand was very soft and loose, as expected. Now we are waiting for sections of the route, which had been last year. They are small dunes, only 800-900 meters long, on which half of the participants get stuck. If there are such sections without standstills, it will be perfect," said the sportsman. "We won some time trying to catch up with Valtr, but the gap is still large, and today was full of truly speedy sections, so it's really difficult to win back much time. But we managed to "bite off" two minutes. And we won 30 minutes over Tomeček to reach third position in the truck standings", concluded Sergey Kupriyanov.

"There are rocky roads here too. Today, for example, no one expected that there would be stones at the end. There were huge boulders KAMAZ could only bypass unable to jump them over. There were very sharp rocks that could easily damage tires. There were "killer" straight sections: straight roads with cross ditches where you bang and jump here and there. There are speedy tracks on which you're driving at the limit, at the maximum permissible speed, but there's no guarantee that you will not meet any obstacles there. There are vegetation sections, roads with so-called "camel grass", camel thorn which KAMAZ can go over, but it starts shaking, which is very difficult to withstand physically. As a result, all the same it is necessary to sheer away and abide by the road. There are sands. In short, there's full diversity there," concluded pilot Andrey Karginov.

Today, on January 10, there will be the 9th stage of the Africa Eco Race Amodjar - Akjoujt 464 km long, including 390 km of special stage. The organizers promise that the difficulties will begin at the very start, 50 km of liaison will be difficult in terms of navigation. Most sections of the track at this stage are in the heart of the dunes and bushes which distort the view. After the crews get out of this "huge sandbox", the route will lead the participants to Azougui (Azuggi) where motorcycles will be refueled. Then they'll return to Akjoujt. Here the sportsmen will stay for two days, because the stage of January 11 will be loop. In all, the sportsmen will have to cover a little more than a thousand kilometers on a way to Lac Rose in Dakar wh ere the Africa Eco Race will finish on January 14.

Stage Eight T4 Scratch Standings

Position

Name

Country

Mark

Scratch

1

Andrey Karginov

Andrey Mokeev

Dmitry Nikitin

Russia

KAMAZ

4:21:10

2

Sergey Kupriyanov

Alexander Kupriyanov   

Anatoly Tanin

Russia

KAMAZ

+00:12:07

3

Jaroslav Valtr

Rostislav Pilny

Czech Republic

TATRA

+00:14:11

4

Tomas Tomecek

Ladislav Lala

Czech Republic

TATRA

+00:43:31

5

Miklos Kovacs

Peter Czegledi

Laszlo Acs

Hungary

Scania

+00:59:21

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