The official test session of the "Blue Lakes Rally 2009", a round of the Russian Cup, was held on Thursday. The track was open for recce from 10 to 12 am, and then it was allowed to tackle it in testing mode. Cars entered in the rally (so, with roll cages), protection helmets, road closure, an ambulance car at the start - everything like it should be organised on tests.  The track itself turned out to be very interesting and fully appropriate for adjusting cars' settings: an 8 kilometres long stage with big level differences, various turns and exactly the same surface (packed sand with gravel) to what we'll see in the race.  

And if not for the cold, it would have been even more fun. After yesterday's +26, +8 of today made fronzen even those who did take a warm jactket with them. However, the intermittently shining sun saved the situation a bit...

20 crews took part in the shakedown. The fastest by eye was Stanislav Travnikov, though there was no official timing, and many crews didn't drive the whole distance at full speed, paying more attention to adjusting their pacenotes systems, engines, suspensions and etc.. That's why it was useless to apply a stopwatch at the end of the stage... 

G-Force Motorsport was busy setting up their cars. Boris Gadasin and Vladimir Demyanenko were testing their Lancer, while Alexey Denisov (he will drive a zero car) was getting used to gravel surface and was checking his Nissan Patrol's performance, for which in preparations to the race there wasn't enough time to fully repaint it, and hence in the pictures you can notice the lack of black colour. 

The recconnaisance, administrative checks and scrutineering will be held on Friday May 1st - the Labour Day in Russia...

News from Alexander Lesnikov
P.S. Such a beautiful sunset over there...