KAMAZ-Master pilots are preparing for the Silk Road rally marathon

The participants of the Silk Road rally marathon from the KAMAZ-Master team are diligently preparing to complete the off-road course at extreme speeds and take prizes.

Training runs prepare crews for the most difficult situations on the real track, help save hours when passing steep bends, descents and ascents on the shores of Lake Baikal or on the Altai passes. According to the pilots, you must first learn to trust the car, not to be afraid of dirt, and not to give in to emotions.

"For KAMAZ, for trucks, the worse the track, the better. The more difficult it is, the more the fight, the more interesting it is," said Dmitry Sotnikov, the pilot of the team.

Thanks to its well-thought-out design and sturdy suspension, the multi-ton machine can handle obstacles and bumps on the road.

"It's not just a truck—it's a steel beast. There are up to 1,000 horses under the hood. Weight – under 10 tons. But do not think that this is a clumsy giant," said Maxim Sirotkin, a correspondent for Izvestia.

Pilot Anton Shibalov drew attention to the fact that this year the competition at the event will be much higher.

"The competition today is much higher than, probably, at the Dakar, because even at the same Russian championship, on the Silk Road, we have such rivals as the MAZ team. Ural is already pulling up very strongly. GAS is also growing every year, guys," he explained.

Five KAMAZ-master cargo crews will take part in the 15th international Rally Marathon, and the rally is scheduled to start on July 12 in Irkutsk. In total, participants will have to travel almost 5,000 km in two weeks, with 2.5 thousand km of them being high—speed dangerous special stages.

The rally route is designed in such a way that at the beginning of the journey the race will be immediately uphill, over a pass, and then along winding Siberian roads and Mongolian steppes, where there are a lot of rocks and heavy shaking. Later, the participants will visit the Gobi Desert, where there are about 100 km of clear dunes. Crews finish in Gorno-Altaysk

On June 9, a festival was held in Moscow in honor of the 15th anniversary of the Silk Road Rally Marathon. Rally enthusiasts could study the technique, as well as try themselves as a pilot, sitting in the cockpit.