The rally named in memory of Andriy Aleksandrov was the event that legendary Ukrainian driver dreamed of: fight for the victory kept on till the final stage. Unfortunately, there was no chance to win for the strongest foreign guest, Lithuanian Vytautas Svedas – bad luck not allowed him even to finish the first Saturday stage. Few kilometers from the start the car of Baltic crew went off the road and spin; fortunately, only metal was damaged, but not the people.

So after Svedas crash the strongest Ukrainian drivers – Aleksandr Saliuk, Yuriy Kochmar, Valeriy Gorban and Vitaliy Pushkar – became the main favorites of the rally. Russian Vasiliy Gryazin, never been to Ukraine before, intercepted in their battle quite unexpectedly, though. Showing the strong performance and tactical wisdom, Gryazin confidently got over all the rally distance and finished on the second place overall.

And who became first? This question was opened till the very final stage. Aleksandr Saliuk took the lead from the start but caught a puncture in the SS4. Additionally to that, the rear differential on his car failed at the same time. So in fact Aleksandr had the front-wheel-drive car on SS4 and 5, and he lost some places because of that. On the service the car was repaired and Saliuk came back to the fight, strongly chasing the rivals.

As Saliuk was having the problems, Yurii Kochmar took a lead heading the rally till the very final stage. But on the SS8 he’s got a puncture too and finished only on the third place overall. However, Saliuk showed a fantastic speed on the last three stages and won the Aleksandrov Rally second time in row.
Gorban and Pushkar got the different problems as well. Valeriy’s car has been overheating through all the distance, so the driver had to switch on the heater (under the 40-degrees temperature outside the car). Despite of it, the Ukrainian champion got the fourth place on the finish, taking the important points. Pushkar, on the contrary, couldn’t do the same and left the road on the very final special stage because of gearbox problems.

The rest of the battle in international classes – in our next material.