OREANDA-NEWS. July 21, 2010. From this autumn the KAMAZ-master team will compete on trucks of a new construction in international rallies.

Within 9 months the designers of the team developed and made the new race car. Currently the new “weapon” of the KAMAZ-master team is being thoroughly tested before the “Silk Way” rally.

The new race car was presented on the team’s proving ground in the settlement of Tarlovka not far from Naberezhnye Chelny. The main kinds of obstacles which the KAMAZ race car will have to bridge in the course of the rally are simulated on the track 17 kilometers long.

Vladimir Chaguin, the team’s legendary pilot noted that creating the new vehicle the constructors had mainly tried to reduce its weight so long as a power force component of the vehicle had been perfect and effective enough.

One can easily notice the design changes of the KAMAZ sport car immediately. The designers moved the cab backwards as much as it was possible taking into account technical requirements. They even had to remove a footstep for the pilots. The platform of the vehicle is lower than before, and the body geometry was changed in order to improve its aerodynamic qualities. The road weight of the vehicle is 9.3 tonnes, the engine power of 850 hp enables to speed up the vehicle to 100 km/h for 9.8 seconds, and the maximum speed is 196 kilometers an hour.

The “Silk Way” rally raid will be held from 11 to 18 September 2010 on the route St. Petersburg – Sochi. The KAMAZ-master team is supposed to send its 7-8 crews to the rally. Seven of them will be headed by Vladimir Chaguin, Firdaus Kabirov, Ilghizar Mardeev, his son Ayrat Mardeev, Eduard Nikolaev, Andrey Karginov and television anchorman Andrey Leontyev. If Tatarstan’s President Rustam Minnikhanov has time and an opportunity to take a leave and participate in the rally, the eighth crew will be headed exactly by him. The head of the republic haven’t finally confirmed his participation in the rally so far.