Six sports GAZ trucks started from the Red Square in Moscow to participate in the rally-raid “Silk Road”. The team “GAZ Reid Sport” — consists of sports “Gazelle NEXT”, “Sobol 4×4”, “Sadko” and “Sadko NEXT”. The vehicles are made on the basis of serial production of the Gorky automobile plant, which is part of “GAZ Group” — one of Russia’s largest diversified industrial group “Basic Element”.
“GAZ Reid Sport” team vehicles started from the Red Square in Moscow. Two team vehicles — sports “Gazelle NEXT” and “Sobol 4×4” — will take place the entire race from Moscow to Beijing and finish on July, 24 in China. The only all-female team starts the race on “Sobol 4×4”. The length of the rally-raid route will be more than 10 000 km. Another four vehicles: two “Gazelle NEXT”, participating in Raid-Sport category and “Sadko” and “Sadko the NEXT”, participating in truck category, will take part in the first half of the marathon, which is also the IV stage of the championship of Russia on rally- raids. The finish of this stage is planned in the capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, July 14.
On the way the athletes will overcome the ground roads of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, Kazakh steppe with ditches and dry riverbeds, sandy tracks and dunes near Lake Balkhash, rocky trails and sand dunes of the Gobi Desert.
In sports, “the NEXT Gazelle” and “Sobol 4×4” serial Cummins ISF 2,8 engines with special sports add-ons are mounted. “Sadko” and “Sadko NEXT” equipped with YaMZ-534 engines of Yaroslavl Motor Plant of “GAZ Group”. In just a few years of participation in competitive sports complex powertrains of YaMZ showed high reliability in the most harsh operating at high temperatures. Thanks to the special settings YaMZ engines develop up to 300 hp at 2600 rev / min and torque of 1000 Nm at
For the first time “Ural NEXT” trucks will be used as the technical assistance vehicles,
created on the basis of serial “Ural” trucks. Small changes in the EECU of YaMZ-536 and the transmission settings allow these machines to accelerate to 120 km / h. Operational assistance, as well as the supplying of a group of journalists and photographers to complex areas of the sport tracks would engage “Sobol 4×4” SUVs. The high permeability of these vehicles allows them to get to the most inaccessible areas.
Lubricating oils and operating fluids are provided by Total company. Benefits of Total Rubia TIR and Total Trans Gear motor oils — maintaining a stable quality of the lubricant for a long time at the maximum load of the motor.
Michelin provided the tires. “Sadko” and “Sadko NEXT” are equipped with Michelin XZL while “Gazelle NEXT” and “Sobol 4×4” BFGoodrich All-Terrain. The characteristics of these tires provide the best combination of speed on dirt roads and off-road ability in the sands off the road.
Teams:
- “Gazelle NEXT” — driver Vyacheslav Subbotin, navigator Yevgeny Pavlov
- “Sobol 4×4” — driver Tatiana Eliseevat, navigator Elena Pravdina
- “Gazelle NEXT” — driver Michael Kostrukovt, navigator Oleg Nezhnov
- “Gazelle NEXT T1” — driver Alexander Kostrukov pilot, navigator Ramil Zamaletdinov
- “Sadko NEXT” — driver Boleslav Levitsky, navigator Stanislav Dolgov
- “Sadko” — driver Michael Shklyaev, navigator Alexander Laguta
