RUSSIAN NATIONAL RALLY CUP-2000 HAD STARTED

Rally "VYATKA" in the old Russian city of Kirovsk (former - Vyatka) opened the National Cup-2000 series. The National Cup has less priority than the Championship and there are some limitations to the participating cars (ex.: no foreign made 4WD or turbocharged cars are participating) and crews (crews of top 20 national priority cannot score points here). So we can say that it is "the second league" of national rallying. The young crews or those who cannot afford the Championship participations are starting.

The only trouble for that rally was the time - though the Russian orthodox Christmas is in January, only the few days were left before the New Year. And that limited the number of entrees with a very small figure of 14 crews.

Meanwhile the results of the first round displayed the serious struggle. Top 4 cars completed the 294.7 Km distanse with 86.9 competitive kilometres on the 12 special stages within half a minute. The damage of the engine on the penultimate stage made one other strong crew of D. Levyatov (Moscow) to retire, loosing the very close podium.

The rally was won by St. Petersburg crew of Alexey KONSTANTINOV - Teimur IMANOV (IGM Rally Team) at their first ride on Group A 2-litre LADA(VAZ)-21107 that was prepared at RRT Tuning Centre. Only 16 seconds later were Alexey KHANOVICH - Sergey TALANTSEV from "John Alex Team - KAJMA Racing" on Group A Nissan Sunny with sequential gearbox. (Sergey Talantsev is one of the most experienced Russian co-drivers, who won the podiums at the maraphone rallies like Paris - Beijing and for some years was the AvtoVAZ Rally Team co-driver.). And only 8 seconds lost to the 2nd place the crew from Kirovo-Chepetsk - Yuri SHUSTOV - Andrew SAVINYKH on 1,6-litre LADA(VAZ)-2108.

The complete results table of the rally (Russian)
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