OREANDA-NEWS. The 7th day of the race became the second «border-line» day for the Silk Way Rally-2017, and the border crossed was between Kazakhstan and China. Racing crews and assistance teams were getting ready for a long and uneasy process. But, thanks to the race organizers, everything went smoothly, there was a person at each point who helped to organize everything in the best way. The main question at the border was, «Do you have cats or dogs?» The team didn’t have any cats or dogs with them, but they had horse meat from Russia that was lovingly kept in fridges of assistance trucks and unfortunately taken by Chinese border guards and veterinary checks. Then the raid went to the bivouac in Karamai city, and the second pleasant impression was that Chinese autobahns were without traffic and holes. The bivouac was on the territory of the airport: the whole administration of the rally as well as catering were located inside a huge exhibition building, that became a real rescue for the participants who could hide from the heat in the cool building.

This day was rich in impressions, but it didn’t allow to forget about the main intrigue of the day: about last stage on the territory of Kazakhstan. This special seemed like just a formal one, but it brought many surprises to the rally participants. Nobody wanted to lose time at this short and fast stage, everybody was fighting for seconds, therefore complicated navigation could turn into a serious problem for many. On arrival at the bivouac, the sportsmen were passionately discussing this short section, shared their impressions, comparing today’s special with continuous ups and downs like on a plane, and were happy that they had managed with driving in such difficult conditions.

American Bryce Menzies was first today in the car category, showing an excellent result and leaving behind Cyril Despres who lost him a minute and a half. Sebastien Loeb finished third today with a minute and 37-second gap, but keeping his lead in the standings.

KAMAZ-master crews has today shown an excellent result and made their fans happy by taking all first 4 positions in the table. Showing the best time in his category, Dmitry Sotnikov strengthened his lead in the overall. All trucks have shown a stable fight today – the time difference between first and 10th truck (Gerard de Rooy) was only 5 minutes.

Dmitry Sotnikov, pilot of KAMAZ-master Team, crew No. 303: «China is a traditionally hospitable country, safety is very well organized on the route – every crossroad is secured by a lot of people, they gave us a warm welcome. Even on the territory of the bivouac there are a lot of people. We passed the border quite fast, we don’t have any complaints, the race organizers did a great job. We are happy to see the summer, as this year it isn’t warm in Russia, so we will get warm here. The special was interesting today: everybody was flying, there are a lot of holes, therefore we've 'treaded on eggshells' today, but nevertheless once we jumped higher than usual and didn’t notice how we touched the sump: there was an oil leakage, but it didn’t influence us, we didn’t notice anything, we didn’t get a loss of pressure, and in general all characteristics were OK, therefore we continued our drive and only at the finish noticed a little leakage already repaired for now.»