Vladimir Chagin, leader of the KAMAZ-master team, head of the Silk Way project, has officially presented the route of the marathon rally 2018 in Moscow. Six KAMAZ-master crews will participate in the fight for the main trophy of the race. Five of them will be on KAMAZ diesel trucks and one on a gas-diesel truck, as reported by the press office of KAMAZ PJSC.
Silk Way 2018 starts on July 15 in the city of XI'an (China) and finishes on July 27 in Red Square in Moscow. This year, rally arrangers changed the route and tried to add the best features of African and transcontinental Eurasian marathon rallies to the race itinerary. Previously, the rally used to begin in Russia, but this time it will start in the Gobi desert (China), which will be one of the most exciting and challenging stages of the marathon.
After the first half of the route through China, where a day of rest in Urumqi is provided, the rally will move to Russia. The equipment will be transported from Urumqi to Astrakhan by planes. After several special stages near Astrakhan, including two rings with start and finish in Astrakhan, the participants will head to Moscow through Volgograd and Lipetsk.
Total distance of the rally will be 5947 kilometers (3348 kilometers across the territory of China, 2599 kilometers across the territory of Russia). The length of high-speed special stages is 3164 kilometers. In total, ten stages are planned, five for each country.
It is worth reminding that the previous Silk Way Rally in the trucks category was won by one of the four crews of the KAMAZ-master team, led by Dmitry Sotnikov. This year, the core team of the truck ranking will consist of six KAMAZ-master trucks. Among competitors, there are representatives of other Russian machine-building enterprise: GAZ RAID Sport will participate on two racing trucks.
