The new Slavic Cup Rally appeared to be absolutely unpredictable. But let's proceed step by step.

The first step was the ceremonial start. Introduction of the crews to the large audience, applause, passage through the start archway and the flight of a helicopter (involved in the safety control) with a Belarus flag, the latter immediately creating holiday atmosphere.

And so the start. In keeping with the best traditions of the Russian Championship its Belarus stage turned out to be no less unpredictable and tricky than the familiar races. By the end of the fourth kilometer already the list of the participants thinned out by 3 lines. Dmitry Tagirov, Gennady Broslavsky and Sergey Uger in concert settled in the same left-hand sweep. Evgeny Novikov had successfully passed this and half hundred more sweeps, after which he hit the marbles at special stage 2 and stuck there. On the whole, pleasure - or not pleasure - trips outside the track were rather popular with the participants. Andrey Trukhin had a more pleasure trip for he returned to the race, Petr Turkin had a less pleasure trip for he lost his rear window, and Dmitry Gorchakov had the most unpleasant trip - he damaged the frame and fell out of the race.

Patrik Flodin kept to the same trend. He was swung around at special stage 2. While the dust was settling and Patrik was coming back to the track, Andrey Zhigunov took the 1^st position.

P. Flodin: "We were swung around at special stage 2, and we raised the dust and I was lost in it and didn't know which way to go. We had to wait until the dust settled, we lost a lot of time. At the second step I will speed up a little, but very carefully - I would not like to open the track, let Andrey do that."

The second crew of our team, Sergey Uspenskiy/Marina Danilova, was the eighth in the overall classification after the first step. Also Lithuanian Champion of Belarus Vilmantas Pupius, Belarus crew of Yury Grischenkov as well as anticipated Vadim Makarov, Alexander Nebogatikov and Vladimir Ganin were in the top ten of the overall classification

Those who knew about Patrik's plans couldn't help being astonished by the results of the second step. Flodin had only 0.4 second to overtake Zhigunov after the first day. As a result Patrik will start the second as he planned.

E. Axelsson: "Frankly speaking, it is impossible to create such a margin intentionally. But if we could do it we would have done the same!"

At the second section Sergey Uspenskiy speeds up and outdriving Alexander Nebogatikov takes the 7^th position in the overall classification.

- Are you not pleased with yourself?

S. Uspenskiy: "You can't go in for rally optionally. Otherwise every time is as the first time. And on the road you get to know everything from the beginning, overcome yourself. Then you settle down to it a little, but to get appropriate level you should drive all the time. "

Andrey Trukhin attacked Petr Turkin at his third position. The margin between these two crews is 7.8 seconds at the end of the day.

Vladimir Ganin having been penalized left the top ten and was replaced by Vladimir Kilunin from Yekaterinburg. By the way, this penalty didn't influence Ganin's position in the RAF Trophy: after special stage 1 already he had a minute and a half margin.

URT serviced Alexander Prokopenko finishes the day on the 5^th position in R2 classification.

Tomorrow at 11:09 the first crew will start on Special Section 7 - the first of the 6 special sections of the final Slavic Cup Rally day.

Text: Irina Boyarskaya

Photo: Anatoly Kozharin, Gleb Malofeev