OREANDA-NEWS. The captain of the KAMAZ-Master team, repeat winner of the Dakar Rally, Vladimir Chagin, spoke about preparing for the Dakar-2015 race and the Africa Eco Race.

According to Vladimir Chagin, the Dakar-2015 rally race will feature four crews. First: driver - Eduard Nikolaev, navigator - Evgeny Yakovlev, mechanic - Vladimir Rybakov; second: Ayrat Mardeev - Aydar Belyaev - Dmitriy Svistunov; third: Andrey Karginov - Andrey Mokeev - Ayrat Israfilov; fourth: Dmitry Sotnikov - Igor Devyatkin - Andrei Aferin.

The rally will kick off on January 4, 2015, in Buenos Aires. The route will cross Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. This time, the organizers of Dakar Rally have prepared an additional test for the participants: after the penultimate stage and before the rest day, the racers will find themselves in a separate camp, where they will not be able to receive help from team mechanics. On that day, all help from mechanics is strictly prohibited, and all repairs, should they be necessary, will have to be performed by crew members only. Vladimir Chagin believes that this will definitely be yet another tough test.

The Africa Eco Race marathon rally, which is considered to be the successor of the legendary Paris-Dakar rally, will be held from December 28, 2014 through to January 11, 2015, and will feature the classic route of the "old" Dakar, with the start in Saint-Cyprien in southern France and the finish at Lac Rose in Dakar. The route length is 6,000 km, of which 3,000 km are high-speed. The KAMAZ-Master team will be represented by two crews: Anton Shibalov - Robert Amatych - Almaz Hisamiev and Sergey Kupriyanov - Aleksandr Kupriyanov - Anatoly Tanin.

According to Vladimir Chagin, the African rally is far from easy, since Mauritanian quicksands are very difficult to drive on. In addition, Kupriyanov's crew will be driving a gas and diesel KAMAZ-4326 truck and will be promoting all the benefits of using gas fuel. As explained by the captain of the Russian racers, using gas fuel reduces cash expenses by approximately 15%. "Every year, requirements for vehicles are getting stricter, including environmental factors," added Chagin. Sergey Kupriyanov already tested this truck during the Gold of Kagan and Great Steppe Russian races.

Gas-and-diesel engine runs on a mixture of methane and diesel fuel at a ratio of 30/70 per cent. A special machine tanker with natural gas for the race will be provided, since the crew is not sure, whether it would be possible to fill the truck up along the route.

KAMAZ is the largest Russian manufacturer of trucks. It includes over 150 organizations located in Russia, CIS and abroad, including 12 major automotive production plants. It also includes assembly facilities in Vietnam, Iran, India, Kazakhstan and Pakistan. KAMAZ employs over 59 thousand people.