A festive start ceremony of the rally raid “Silk Road” was held in Astrakhan. In the rally will participate more than 60 crews, including Turkmen, Belarusian and Kazakh racers.

Special attention of the motorsports amateurs and specialists is paid to the truck standings where a star team “KAMAZ-master” went for another victory.

The route of the rally “Silk Road 2022” will take place entirely in Russia. Racers will have to overcome a road in 4500 kilometers. On July 16, the winners of the race will cross the finishing podium in Moscow.

Four “KAMAZ-master” crews will conquer Astrakhan sands and mountain special stages of the Caucasus:

• Dmitry Sotnikov (last year's winner of the “Silk Road”) – Ruslan Ahmadeev – Ilgiz Ahmetzyanov;
• Eduard Nikolaev – Evgeniy Yakovlev – Bogdan Karimov;
• Andrey Karginov – Andrey Mokeev – Ivan Malkov;
• Sergey Kupriyanov – Alexander Kupriyanov – Sergey Krenev.

Eduard Nikolaev and Dmitry Sotnikov navigate new sports trucks “KAMAZ-435091” of K5 group. Sergey Kupriyanov’s crew competes on “KAMAZ” truck that use gas and diesel mix, and Andrey Karginov will challenge off-road driving on the time-tested “KAMAZ-43509” model.

The main rival of “KAMAZ-master” for the victory in the truck competition is the representatives of the Belarusian team “MAZ-SPORTavto” and the Russian team “GAZ Reid Sport”.

We add that the climbing to the top of the world sports Olympus of the team from Naberezhnye Chelny began in 1988 at the “Yelch” rally in Poland. No one expected that the debutants from Russia would first win the silver of the race, and soon they would become world famous under the name “KAMAZ-master”. Since then, Russian racers have won three World Cups and 9 victories in the “Silk Road” Super Marathon.