Baja Russia Northern Forest is included in the calendar of the Russian Cross-Country Championship. Nearly three dozens of competitors will fight for the victory, and the main favorites are the racers who have become champions of Russia in various racing disciplines in different years.
The main favorite of this fight is Vladimir Vasilyev – the three-time winner of the race and the four-time Russian Cross-Country Champion. The Vasilyev Racing team representative will drive MINI and will try to become the Northern Forest record-holder. Only two drivers have won three times in the race history – Vladimir Vasilyev and Boris Gadasin. The latter will not start this year, so Vasilyev has every chance to set a unique record.
It is interesting to note that for the past two years Vasilyev has won the Baja Russia Northern Forest with co-drivers from different countries – in 2020 the Ukrainian Vitaly Evtekhov was in the crew, and last year – the Russian Aleksey Kuzmitch. Oleg Uperenko representing Latvia is getting ready for the start in 2022 in Vasilyev’s crew!
However, very eminent rivals are preparing to fight with the main contender for the victory.
Cross-Country Champion of Russia and World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies holder in the T2 standings Andrey Rudskoy, who will be assisted by Andrey Rudnitsky, has missed most of the 2021 racing season, but couldn’t deny himself a pleasure to rush along the snow and ice baja track. As always, Rudskoy will start in the G-Force BARS prototype.
Sergey Uspensky has been mastering cross-country rallies for quite a long time, but he won his main success in the classic rally – a Muscovite playing for the Uspensky Rally Technika team is a sixteen-time Russian Champion in various motorsports, including an eight-time national Rally Champion.
This year Uspensky will present two important novelties – firstly, Alexander Zheludov will be his co-driver! Fans will see such a tandem of two Russian rally champions among drivers for the first time. Another novelty is Uspensky’s car – instead of the usual Nissan he will drive a Toyota Hilux from the Overdrive Racing factory team.
But this is not the end of the list of Russian champions among the 2022 Baja Russia Northern Forest competitors – Evgeny Sukhovenko from the GAZ Raid Sport team will go into battle with number 206. He is the two-time Russian Rally Champion and Russian Cross-Country Champion. Kirill Chapaev from St. Petersburg, who previously drove a rally car, will assist the Rostovite.
All four champion crews will drive the T1 category prototypes, so the fight for the victory and prizes in the overall standings of the Russian Cross-Country Championship round will be keener than ever. But the battle in the other standings will be no less interesting.
The T3 light prototype category will be the most popular this year with eight SSVs: there are seven Can-Am Maverick X3s and one Yamaha. Champions will also fight here – Vadim Fedotov, the two-time winner of the Russian Cross-Country Championship in the T3 category, will try to take revenge for last year’s defeat – a year ago he took the third place, losing to Boris Gadasin and Alexey Shmotiev.
However, the list of Fedotov’s rivals in the T3 standings is very interesting, so the event will not be an easy ride for him. He will be opposed by two experienced female drivers Anastasia Nifontova and Tatyana Sycheva, three representatives of the Nakusi Racing Team – Armen Puzyan, Pavel Silnov and Alexander Fedoruk, as well as Alexey Bogodistov from the GAZ Raid Sport factory team, and Vyacheslav Paputsky, the only Yamaha rider
Special attention of fans and journalists will be riveted to the only crew that will compete in the T4 standings – driver Sergei Remennik and co-driver Yaroslav Fedorov. They are also athletes of the classic rally. Remennik is the Russian Rally Champion in the N4 category, as well as the silver and bronze medalists of the FIA European Rally Championship in the ERC2 standings. Fedorov is the 2020 Russian Rally Champion in the crew with Vasily Gryazin and the bronze medalist of the WRC2 in the crew with Nikolay Gryazin. It will be a debut in cross-country rallies for both the driver and the co-driver – they will have to take their first steps in this kind of motorsport.
It is impossible to predict the name of the winner and prize-winners in the R and T2 standings: everything is possible here, even the most unexpected one.
Five drivers will start in R category: Bogdan Vavrenyuk, Aleksey Cherkesov, Mikhail Rastorguev, Aldis Vilcāns and Mikhail Kutinov in different cars: GAZ-67, G-Force Proto, Nissan Pathfinder, Toyota Land Cruiser 200 and UAZ Pickup, respectively.
There is a slightly different situation in the T2 category – there are eight competitors, six of them chose the Toyota Land Cruiser 200, one – UAZ Patriot, and one female driver will compete in the exotic Dacia Duster. Andrey Sushentsov, Anton Melnikov, Aldis Vilcāns (he will perform in two standings), Vadim Novikov, Andrey Dinaburg, Roman Agoshkov, Leonid Petrov and Polish racer Magdalena Zajac will compete for prizes in T2 standings.
Source: Baja Russia
