Silk Way – 2012

The traditional international rally-maraphon ‘Silk Way – 2012” will be held from the 7th to the 13th July on the territories of Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Leading world teams will take part in the competiotion.

According to Semyon Yakubov, director of the "Silk Way" project,  the format of the rally was significantly altered, as well as special road sections. “On May 17 a general reconnaissance will start, in the process of which all the preliminary work which was done already in the autumn of last year will be checked and material for the composition of road book will be chosen. It will certainly be kept in strict secrecy from the participants. By the start of the game this road book will be presented to all participants. The legend will be written by most famous and one of the best world specialists: Stephane Le Bail who has already prepared three issues of the Silk Way. This one will become his fourth one, he has great experience in preparing other competitions, including the Dakar rally. Pierre Lartigue is participating in the organization of the rally for the first time, but he is a very famous figure in our country and abroad, he is a three-time winner of the Dakar rally, four-time winner of the World Rallying championship and probably his biggest achievement is participation in a rally on Kamaz”. He also noted that from one year to the next, the rally becomes more and more difficult for the participants, making the route more difficult and finding new sections of road.

Frederic Lequien, deputy director of the "Silk Way" project, said that this year the organizers  managed to gather the most powerful team of participants in the whole history of the Silk Way rally. “At the moment we already have 100 cars and 30 trucks enlisted for participation in the rally. I believe this is a great indicator as compared to, for example, last year, the number of participants has increased significantly. One can say that it happened also because we have managed to persuade Russians to participate in the rally, but at the same time the number of foreign participants has also grown and I am very happy about this. The quality is directly related to quantity. One can say that up to now we have received confirmation from the strongest teams in this type of rallies. First of all, I am talking about the Mini X-Ray team. They will participate with us this year. The Overdrive team with a new Toyota car will also participate in the rally. The teams De Sud and SMG will also participate in the rally this year. We can say that the most important news is that this year after a break we will be joined by Jean-Louis Schlesser, who will participate in the rally as a pilot. In the category of trucks we have the same situation. This year there are will be very strong, powerful and interesting teams, equal in force: Tatra, Man, Genaf and perhaps even Kamaz. This year is also largely different from last year in terms of media coverage of the rally. Newspapers and TV are talking about our rally more and more. The media coverage and the character of the coverage have also significantly changed. A little more than a month ago I was telling you about negotiations with the famous holding Eurosport. We have managed to sign a contract, a very important contract with this organization”.

Gilles Sourize, participant of the reconnaissance noted that this year the rally will have more funds than during the previous one. “There will be 23 people and three of them will be representatives of the media holding Eurosport. There will be means already traditional for us, including a special helicopter which will be equipped with a special camera with a manipulator, there will be also groups working on all-wheel-drive jeeps and groups working on bivouacs. I would like to stress that all the people I am talking about are very experienced. Each of them has from five to ten years of experience in rallies such as the Dakar rally. These people are great experts and specialists”.

Pierre Lartigue, four-time world champion of rally-raids, three-time winner of the Dakar rally: “In my opinion the route of this year's rally is fantastically interesting, first of all because of its diversity. There will be fast-speed road sections as well as dune sections. In fact, it is a very interesting rally that attracts a great number of participants and is conducted in a very good period of time. This factor will attract more and more participants in the future”.

Stephan Le Bail, participant of the reconnaissance: “The road book we are making is in line with international standards used on all rally raids. I have composed a great number of books for a great number of rally raids and I would like to say that the road book of the Silk Way is the most ample in regard to different regions and zones. One can find there fast-speed sections, rocky slopes, dunes, there are very interesting navigation and GPS points which help to orientate during the rally. In general it is one of the most interesting and complex documents. That is why the rally attracts a great number of participants. As a project it interests racers from different countries. We have been in Abu-Dhabi and Dubai with my colleague Pierre and people there know about this rally and are interested in it because they know that it is a race with an interesting navigation and a very interesting landscape”.