The fourth stage of the Transsyberia Rally 2008 powered by Sony Ericsson from Yekaterinburg to Tyumen – Siberia’s oldest Russian city, located in the swampy area of the Tura – is affected by strong rainfalls. A fierce storm front submerged the entire area of the special stage in water. It was
already known from last year that this test stage was difficult and demanding, even in good weather conditions. The rally organizers and the medical service drove into the special stage to assess, but realized after only a few hundred meters, that one couldn’t get through the deep mud. The conclusion:
The safety of the teams isn’t ensured, since the stretch is also impassable for the emergency
vehicles. The participants understood the decision and steered straight towards the destination
Tyumen, 180 km away.
Aside from the experienced pilots, the “young and the restless“, who’d been looking forward to
maneuvering their cars through the forest and the swamp of the 21 km long demanding stretch, also
showed understanding. Ryan Millen/Team USA, son of last year’s winner: “If the emergency doctor can’t
get to the scene of the accident, I would have had a precarious feeling to start into the stage.“ Lars
Kern/Team Germany 3 is looking forward to having a quiet end to the day and gather strength fort he
next days. During the first days of the rally, the 20 year old showed consistently good performances
and is placed in an extraordinary and well-earned third place right now.
A lot of headway was made yesterday. About 1000 km from Kazan to Yekaterinburg. In contrast, the
speedy special stage was limited to a mere 10 km. Armin Schwarz, Team Germany 1: “Today’s special
stage was only ten kilometers long, so naturally Andi and I took no risks at all. On this short
distance we can win a few seconds at best, but we good loose the rally if worst comes to worst. The
test was rather difficult: water crossings, jumps and uneven terrain.“ In spite of that, Schwarz is
second fastest in the speed test, behind Levyatov and Talantsev from Team Russia 1, who are placed
seventh in the overall standings behind Schwarz. Tognana/Team Italy comes in third, and is in overall
fifth place.
“This way the Transsyberia is really fun. All in all, I like the rally a lot better than I did last
year. The mixture of the various special stages is just right“, so the Spaniard Carles Celma, who
hasn’t made it among the Top 10 yet.
Water ditches, mud and impassable terrain, that’s the problems which the teams have to battle. The
organization crew is having to deal with a whole other set of problems. Aside from technical problems
on land, which prevented the transmission of yesterday’s results, there are now also problems in the
air which need to be solved. Both crew helicopters of the Transsyberia Rally have to stay on the
ground due to technical defects and the passengers have to undertake a long haul with a lot of delay
to the participating teams
Which team is in which position? What’s the up-to-date course of the stages? You can follow each team
of the Transsyberia Rally 2008 exactly via the Live Tracker at
http://www.transsyberia-rallye.de/en/route/live-trackingen/.