OREANDA-NEWS. Four crews of the KAMAZ-master team (piloted by Eduard Nikolayev, Ayrat Mardeev, Anton Shibalov, and Dmitry Sotnikov) will struggle for the main trophy of the race - White Tiger. Andrey Karginov who is recovering after a trauma will skip the race.

This and other news was announced by the head of the team Vladimir Chagin during a press tour for Russian journalists in the team's sports center in Naberezhnye Chelny on June 14-15. An eventful program of the visit included test drives of racing trucks, interviews with crew members and even carting competitions arranged in a carting club under the auspices of KAMAZ-master.

The guests visited a production department and became personally certain that the work is humming on the threshold of the race. On arrival from Dakar, it was planned to modify the racing trucks. One of the novelties is a new vehicle with an in-line six-cylinder engine with a volume of 13 litres. This is the first practice when the engine is installed in the cabover, and it is done in order to comply with the regulation which will be in effect at Dakar from 2018. The installation of such an engine entailed great changes both in the vehicle design and in the exterior. Dmitry Sotnikov will be the test pilot of the new vehicle. His navigator Ruslan Akhmadeev is at the same time a design engineer of the engine shop. And, in view of this, this is exactly this crew that received the vehicle for testing.

The same straight-six engine will be installed in the cabover of Eduard Nikolayev's crew. It should be recalled that the team borrowed Buggyra's engine last year when their own engine was being developed.

The head of the team Vladimir Chagin stressed that they had built a rather interesting vehicle with perfect running capabilities. The teams of Renault, Iveco and Tatra will use cabover vehicles on the future route Moscow – Astana – Xi'an laying ahead. KAMAZ-master will do their best to complete all modifications of the cabover by the start of Silk Way, so that the vehicle could take part in the race in July.

Ayrat Mardeev's crew will also be engaged in the team's testing program. His truck will be equipped with an automatic transmission. Answering journalists' question if it's too risky to test several novelties at once during one race, Vladimir Chagin reasonably quoted a well-known classic, "He who doesn't look ahead remains behind."

The KAMAZ-master team has a clear task at the Silk Way rally - to be on the podium in Xi'an. Sergey Savostin, eight-time winner of the Dakar rally, will head the part of the team participating in the silk Way rally during the race instead of Vladimir Chagin who is the director of the whole project. Chagin stressed that they had been sticking to a principle since 2009: the members of KAMAZ-master are aware of route details and other information on the Silk Way rally not one jot better than other racers.

The entry list of Silk Way Rally-2017 promises a spectacular struggle. The elite of rally raids will appear at the start in Moscow. Dutch Gerard de Rooy will attack with three crews of its team IVECO Petronas De Rooy. Two trucks more will be driven by Artur Ardavichus and Ton van Genugten. Renault Mammoet Riwald Rally Sport and its pilots Martin van den Brink, Pascal de Baar and Gert Huzink are Dutch aspirants to the victory too. Belarusian sportsmen from MAZ-SPORTavto, just like last year, will put forward three crews at the race. Sergey Vyazovich, Aleksey Vishnevsky and Aleksandr Vasilevsky will be the pilots. Czech Tatra will be represented by three teams. Instaforex Loprais Team prepared a truck for Ales Loprais, Tomas Vratny will drive a vehicle from Team Bonver Dakar Project, and Martin Kolomy will participate in the colours of Tatra Buggyra Racing. And each of them wants to enter the struggle for the victory. Eastern Europe will also be represented by Miklos Kovacs from Hungary, the leader of Team Qualisport DAF at Silk Way Rally. And finally, Teruhito Sugawara will arrive from the Land of the Rising Sun to partcipate in the marathon in a Hino truck.

Crews of the KAMAZ-master team to participate in the Silk Way-2017 Rally Marathon:

Eduard Nikolayev - pilot, Evgeny Yakovlev - navigator, Vladimir Rybakov - mechanic,

Ayrat Mardeev - pilot, Aydar Belyaev - navigator, Dmitry Svistunov - mechanic,

Dmitry Sotnikov - pilot, Ruslan Akhmadeev - navigator, Ilnur Mustafin - mechanic,

Anton Shibalov - pilot, Andrey Mokeev - navigator, Dmitry Nikitin - mechanic.