Heavy snow adds to thrills in Russia
Reporting from Saint Petersburg, Russia, HANDBRAKES & HAIRPINS newest contributor, Eva Kovkova, brings us brilliant photographs and an entertaining feature article on the Baja Russia Northern Forest 2010 event.
Story by Eva kovkova
Pictures by Eva Kovkova
Saint Petersburg, Russia – The Baja Russia Northern Forest 2010 is the second round of the International FIA Cup for Cross Country Bajas, and was held near Saint Petersburg in southern Karelia on 26 – 28 February.
Unsurprisingly, the international status of the competition attracted many participants from other countries: crews from Hungary, Croatia, Ukraine, Latvia, Italy, Poland and Russia made up the 44 crews on the entry list.
This event also marked the first round of the Russian Rally-Raid Championship, as well as that of the Latvian Championship.
Fortunately this year there was no lack of snow as big snowfalls and constant frosts recently had completely overturned doubts about global warming to present the participants of the 2010 edition of the Baja Russia Northern Forest event with exciting adventures in a true Russian winter.
Polish driver Krzystof Holowczyc* finished first and Russian driver Alexandr Zheludov was second overall, but during the final scrutineering the air restrictors on their cars were found to not conform with the FIA technical requirements. By the Steward’s decision, the result of crew of car number 8 (A.Zheludov/A.Rudnitskiy) was excluded. And, car number 2’s (Krzystof Holowczyc/Jean-Marc Fortin) air restrictor was sealed and sent to the FIA Technical Department in Geneva for final decision on the measurement. On 10 March 2010 the FIA Technical Department issued a statement that it had measured the air intake restrictor of this car and found that it measured 33.52mm, which exceeded the maximum permitted air restrictor size (33 mm without tolerance). This resulted in Krzystof Holowczyc being immediately excluded from the final classification of the Baja Russia Northern Forest 2010.
So it is Boris Gadasin (G-FORCE MOTORSPORT) – last year’s winner of the Baja – finished third in this year’s event, but he is now declared the winner.
The weekend of 18 – 21 March 2010 will play host to the third round of the FIA International Cup for Cross-Country Bajas in the Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italy. Registration closed with a strong list of 114 enthusiastic competitors. Highlighting the upward trend of this sport, the past year had only 76 crews on the entry list. A duel between Gadasin and Holowczyc has been announced, as was in Saint Petersburg.
* Krzysztof Holowczyc not only participates in rally raiding, where he achieved a fifth place finish in the Dakar 2009, but he is also a rally driver. This Polish driver won his national championship on numerous occasions and was crowned the European Rally Champion in 1997. Last season, in 2009, at the Orlen Platinum 66th Rally Poland (WRC Rally Poland), where he drove for the Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team in a one-off appearance for the team, marked the best-ever result for a Polish driver in international rallying when Krzysztof finished sixth overall in this event ahead of Sebastien Loeb.
To view more of Eva Kovkova’s photography, please visit: http://picasaweb.google.ru/kovkova.eva/
Final Classification:
01) B. Gadasin/V. Demyanenko
(G-Force Motorsport) – 04h 47m 12s
02) A. Mironenko/S. Lebedev
(Nart Time) – 04h 59m 30s
03) Y. Solovyev/V. Korolev
(Nart Time) – 05h 05m 35s
04) B. Novitsky/V. Evtekhov
(G-Force Motorsport) – 05h 15m 41s
05) V. Volikov/A. Volikov
(G-Force Motorsport) – 05h 32m 13s
06) A. Cherednikov/E. Kuznetsov
(G-Force Motorsport) – 05h 46m 33s
FIA Cup T2 category:
01) Victor Volikov/Anatoliy Volikov
02) Andrey Cherednikov/Yevgeniy Kuznetsov
03) Nuno Matos/Filipe Serra
Russian Championship – Overall:
01) Alexander Zheludov/Andrey Rudnitsky
02) Boris Gadasin/Vladimir Demyanenko
03) Alexander Mironenko/Sergey Lebedev
Latvian Championship – Overall:
01) Boris Gadasin/Vladimir Demyanenko
02) Bogdan Novitsky/Vitaly Evtekhov
03) Aldis Vilcans/Dayra Vilcane
Hello. And Bye.