2023 Silk Way Rally: 13th Edition Final Scores

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The #event traditionally pleased the competitors with new tracks and gave the fans an exciting and unpredictable fight in all categories.

The 13th edition of the Silk Way #rally finished on July 15, 2023 on the Red Square in the very center of Moscow. A vivid Prize-giving Ceremony for the #competition finishers, organized by the Moscow Department of Sports in the year of the 100th anniversary of Moscow sports, allowed fans to greet the #event champions, who completed a nine-day route through thirteen regions of the Russian Federation and covered more than five thousand kilometers of distance.

This year the crews faced three-dimensional, twisted and rocky tracks in the foothills of the Southern Urals for the first time in the #event history. These selective sections were a real discovery of the Silk Way #rally Directorate and an additional challenge for the competitors — difficult rocky tracks in three-dimensional landscapes demanded real skill from drivers and co-drivers.

The struggle in every category went on until the very finish line, and even when it seemed that the leader had a comfortable and confident advantage, the #rally presented a new surprise and turned the status quo upside down. And, perhaps, the main episode of the 13th edition was the MAZ-SPORTauto historic victory — the Belarusian team was able to surpass the KAMAZ-Master for the first time in the years of their participation in the Silk Way #rally.

Let us sum up these and other final scores of the 2023 International Silk Way #rally.

New Drama for Vasilyev

In the Car standings Vladimir Vasilyev set the pace for the entire field from the very start of the #rally. The VRT team leader won six stages out of nine, and on the eve of the Ceremonial Finish he was ahead of the nearest pursuer by a hundred minutes. Nevertheless, in one of the puddles at the penultimate stage from Volgograd to Lipetsk, Vladimir Vasilyev lost control of the car, it went off the track and rolled over several times. The crew of Vasilyev and Uperenko, who, it seemed, had the White Tiger in their hands, retired when less than ten percent of the route remained to the finish line.

For several years in a row the Silk Way #rally remains unsummitted for Vladimir Vasilyev. And he has the right to lament his fate: in 2022 Vasilyev also led the overall standings, but lost time due to technical problems and, in pursuit of lost leadership, made a mistake and crashed a car. In 2021 he had to retire, because as a result of tire punctures on sharp stones, the car had no spare wheels to complete the marathon distance.

Vasilyev's failure opened the way to the first place for Andrey Rudskoy's crew. However, the NG-Energo team also had to work hard to win: at the penultimate stage finish the car had problems with the power supply, and only the valiant efforts of the mechanics made it possible to save the vehicle. One way or another, for the first time in their career Andrey Rudskoy, Dmitry Karpov and their team got the laurels of the Silk Way #rally winners in the overall standings and the White Tiger, the main award of the #event.

In the T2 standings, where the production off-road cars compete, the crew of Anton Melnikov and Anton Nikolaev excelled. The duet of the Podmoskovye Team, taking advantage of the LADA Sport ROSNEFT Raid difficulties, broke into the leaders of their scoring category at the second stage and at the finish line was ahead of the closest rivals — the drivers of the Federation of automobile sport of Turkmenistan — by more than two hours. However, this victory was not an easy stroll for the crew of the reigning champions of #russia from the Podmoskovye Team. At the Lipetsk — Moscow selective section the electrics in their Toyota was seriously flooded because of a large number of fords crossed, and the car began to stall. Having spent a lot of time finding out the causes and replacing the failed relay, the crew of Melnikov and Nikolaev managed to meet the allotted time and reached the finish line of the selective section before the control closed.

Ups and Downs in SSV

The #competition in the SSV category was even more unpredictable. At the first stage from Kazan to Ufa Dmitry Mordkovich damaged his suspension and lost an hour and a half. After his triumph at the winter Baja #russia Northern Forest, Mordkovich was considered one of the contenders for victory.

The initiative was intercepted by the crew of Anastasia Nifontova and Ekaterina Zhadanova. However, after two punctures at the third stage the female duo lost the victory at the Silk Way Baja (the third round of the Russian Rally-Raid Championship), and technical problems at the fifth stage of the international #event finally took them out of the fight for victory.

The very experienced Sergey Karyakin became the leader, but he had an unexpected opponent — the rally-raid debutant Roman Rusinov. Rusinov, who became famous in endurance #racing and is the 24 Hours of Le Mans star driver, did not push hard and took care of his vehicle, but still won minute by minute from the leader.

The conclusion of this duel came at the penultimate stage: Rusinov punctured a wheel and was 15 minutes behind Karyakin. It was impossible to win them back at the short final selective section, and as a result Sergey Karyakin led the T3 classification, Roman Rusinov became the runner-up, and Alexey Cherkesov rounded out the top three. Nevertheless, Karyakin and Rusinov also climbed to the podium of the #rally overall standings, taking second and third places, respectively.

Historic Victory for MAZ-SPORTauto

This year the Silk Way #rally has become the main arena of the battle between the giants of the Truck standings — the permanent many-year winners of the #event from the KAMAZ-Master and their principal opponents on the tracks from the Belarusian MAZ-SPORTauto Team. From the very first stages the contenders for victory took the highest possible pace, which not everyone managed to withstand or impose a fight on.

At the second stage, after a navigational mistake, the crew of Dmitry Sotnikov, the Silk Way #rally four-time winner, got stuck in a reservoir and could not get out on their own. At the fourth stage, having punctured the wheels twice, Eduard Nikolaev lost more than ten minutes. Alexey Vishneuski and Vitaly Murylev, the MAZ-SPORTauto drivers, also dropped out of the fight for victory by that moment.

Thus, Sergey Vyazovich, the Belarusian team leader, and Andrey Karginov from the Blue Armada competed for the first place. Both pushed hard: the tires on Vyazovich's truck collapsed over and over again, and Karginov, who was driving first and wasting time looking for the right roads, recouped at high-speed sections and drove closer to the Truck standings leader.

The vehicles could not stand such a crazy pace — at the eighth stage finish the transmission of Karginov's truck jammed in fourth gear, and Vyazovich was out of reach. The crew from Naberezhnye Chelny fought until the very end, but a puncture at the final selective section threw Karginov to the third place in the T5 standings, his teammate from the KAMAZ-Master Eduard Nikolaev became second, and Sergey Vyazovich, together with the MAZ-SPORTauto, celebrated a historic triumph — the team had been going to the Silk Way #rally victory since 2010!

Dmitry Sotnikov, who won the Silk Way #rally four times, took the fourth place this time ahead of the Chinese-Russian One Belt One Road crew — a truck driven by Hou Hongning took the fifth place. Alexey Vishneuski from the MAZ-SPORTauto rounded out the top six, and Sergey Kupriyanov in a KAMAZ sports truck with a gas-diesel engine finished the #rally in the seventh position.

It is also worth noting the eighth place of the crew of Mikhail Shklyaev from the GAZ Raid Sport, who outstripped Yuri Nayman, the driver of the factory URAL Team, which prepared the latest bonneted truck for the Silk Way #rally. Although there were some problems, Nayman overcame the entire distance of the #event, coming to the aid of his rivals more than once. In the final classification the Ural Motorsport crew took the ninth place, but no one at the bivouac had any doubts that in the near future this team would be able to impose a fight to the KAMAZ-Master and the MAZ-SPORTauto.

Shcheglov — Rally-Raid Supernova

This year the Silk Way Series has opened a new discipline in a sports career of Ilya Shcheglov — and the rider of the Doc_32 Team coped with the distance of the international #rally marathon perfectly, scoring a confident win more than two hours ahead of the closest rival in the Cross Country 450 category. And less than six months ago Shcheglov got acquainted with the intricacies of raid navigation and secured a victory at the first ever Silk Way Snow Journey Snowmobile Rally-Raid. So, it would not be an exaggeration to say that there is a supernova in the sky of rally-raids.

It is also necessary to mention the struggle between Vyacheslav Pashchenko and Nail Khubbatullin for the second place. The fight of these riders continued literally at every stage, and before the final selective section they were separated by six seconds. At the final kilometers Pashchenko suffered a hand injury, could no longer maintain the pace of his counterpart and took the third position, while Khubbatullin became the runner-up.

Almost to the very finish line Oleg Pavlenko dominated the G-Moto Challenge Standings, where competitors have to provide technical support to themselves throughout the #rally and third-party assistance from mechanics is prohibited. On the home tracks of the Chelyabinsk Region, Pavlenko created a confident advantage, but technical problems at the penultimate stage cost the rider six hours. The motorcycle was repaired and brought to the finish line, but the first place in the G-Moto Challenge went to Dmitry Kalinin on the Can-Am Outlander quad.

Anatoly Kuznetsov excelled in the Quad standings, he was almost three hours ahead of his closest rivals — Danil Loginov and Azat Shaymukhametov. The only girl in this category — Inna Martyanova on a slow and battered Yamaha Grizzly 700 — was able to overcome the entire distance of the #rally and finish in the fourth place in the Enduro Quad scoring category.

Mysteries and Secrets of Grand Tour

The Small Towns of #russia Grand Tour has started as part of the Silk Way #rally. It is designed for the crews without sports experience in order to explore the world of motorsport from the inside and prepare for future competitions. The results in the Grand Tour depended not only on overcoming the selective sections, but also on the correctness and speed of solving the quests along the route of the International Silk Way #rally.

All crews overcame the distance, although there were some mistakes in navigation. Pyotr Nosatenko and Alexey Anishchenko became the winners in terms of the smallest amount of points that count. The crew of Pyotr Kupriyanov, last year's winner of this category, took the second place, this time he was assisted by Anna Barulina. Oleg Zaikin and Maria Grinevetskaya rounded out the top three.

The greatest adventure of this summer has already gone down in history, and the #rally Directorate is beginning to work on the preparation of the 14th edition of the International Silk Way #rally, in order to traditionally present new routes, unusual directions and unexplored routes to the competitors in 2024!