OREANDA-NEWS. On 17 July KAMAZ celebrated the twentieth birthday of the great KAMAZ-master team.

In autumn 1988 two crews on production trucks KAMAZ-4310 appeared on the starting line of the European rally Elch in the vicinity of the Polish city Vrotslav. So the Chelny racing drivers’ team started to storm the sports Olympus. And its history begins in summer 1988 when Semyon Yakubov – Director of the KAMAZ R&D Center – formed the first backbone of the team, and training for the debut on the international scene started.

That start on the rally in Poland brought the team “silver”. After that there were many successful performances at the most prestigious international competitions. They won seven times at Dakar alone – the most prestigious and significant marathon rally in the world auto racing.

The enterprise itself and KAMAZ vehicles would be quite different without the racing drivers’ team. And, perhaps, off-road rally-raids – this ranking high all over the world and most prestigious kind of auto racing – wouldn’t be so developed and popular in Russia.

Fully formed of KAMAZ sportsmen, the KAMAZ-master team – is the only Russian factory team which defends our country’s honour and prestige on the international sports scene so successfully and brightly. As Vladimir Putin said at the meeting with the team, it has been the national Russian team for a long time.

It includes five World Cup champions, eight Masters of Sports of the international class, five Honoured Masters of Sports. This is the most “star” team composition for the whole history of the Russian auto racing.