Northern Forest 2025: Race without the right to error

The northern forest race is special: this is the only ice race in Russian rally-raids. She used to take place in Karelia, but now she moved closer to St. Petersburg, based on the Igor Drive Avtodrome. The peculiarity of the winter race is that the price of error is very high in it.

This year, the Northern Forest takes place in the status of the first stage of the Russian Rally-Radam championship and the All-Russian Motorly competition. In total, 25 crews on SUVs and Baggi came to the start, and 13 on motorcycles and ATVs.

Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025”

Over three competitive days, athletes overcame 6 special stages with a total length of 830 kilometers, of which 530 were in the “combat” mode. The race route includes, both already known to athletes, as well as completely new, unknown sections of the track, so the race promised to be interesting and complex.

Yes, and the competition is serious: in the absolute standings are two powerful prototypes of the workshop of Boris Gadasin, a whole dozen Baggi, four representatives of the raid-sport offset and seven serial offers of the T2 test.

Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025” Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025” Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025” Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025”

“We were preparing for the starting race of the season especially carefully,” said Vyacheslav Subbotin, sports director of the GAZ Raid Sports, “Mindful of past years, expected to see frosty, but the strong cold did not come. In this regard, we adapt our motors directly on the move, since the mixture of oxygen will not be as rich as it should. The settings of engines on this race will be almost the same as for sand competitions. Since the race will be complex, they made the suspension of our car (in front of it is independent) more energy intensive. We also reconfigured the springs, as there will be no soft snow. They installed a new gearbox on a car with an independent suspension that won the 2024 championship. The NN 4 × 4 gearbox can withstand a large torque, despite its compact size, and this is a very important novelty. In addition, it was possible to increase the road clearance, which means that in the dynamics the car will not beat at large suspension moves. Let’s go to the traditional studded tires BFGOODRICH MUD-Terrain KM3.

Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025” Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025”

As for the crews, the GAZ Raid Sport team will be represented by Alexander Semenov and Dmitry Okhotnikov, as well as Alexey Ignatov and Evgeny Pavlov. Alexey Ignatov just returned from Saudi Arabia from the stage of the World Cup, where his crew showed the fifth result in the absolute and the first in T3. He is in good shape, and I hope that we will be able to make serious competition to our rivals. In our standings, the Raid-Sports are powerful prototypes of Andrei Rudsky, Bogdan Vavrenyuk and Mikhail Rastorguev. We will fight for the first places in the standings, as well as try to show the result in the absolute, but there are such serious riders as Boris Gadasin and Nikita Mazepin. It will be a very difficult race!

Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025” Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025”

From the very morning of Friday, February 7, the crews took place at the Igor Drive autrodrome: after administrative and technical inspections, the judges allowed 25 carcasses and 13 motorsman crews to the start. Exactly at 15:00, the crew of Boris Gadasin and Dmitry Kozhukhov was the first to go to the prologue highway. Already somewhere in the middle of the distance two crews-Vyacheslav and Elvira Paputski and Alexei Cherkesov/Artem Shevelev-were faced with technical problems and completed the prologue at a slow pace. At the Buggie can-am Maverik X3 XRS Turbo R, Nikita Mazepin, the variator malfunctions arose, and the crew spent time to eliminate the breakdown.

Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025”

“The sensations are mixed,” says Nikita Mazepin, “the variator exploded. Therefore, they lost a lot of time. The conditions are not very suitable for the buggy. Because the car is slipping, a large load. I hope that tomorrow there will be a slightly different route.

Anastasia Nifontova drove a prologue in a calm mode, rolling to the highway and the settings of the car. Perhaps, the adventures of the previous day contributed to the adventures of the previous day: on the Nifontov training arrival, she flew into the logs that was unacceptable by the organizers and broke three wheels.

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The best time was shown by Dmitry Voronov, playing in the company of the navigator Kirill Enikeev for the Team Maria Oparina team. In second place Pavel Andreev and Gleb Mokeev of 404 Racing Team, and the third result of Boris Gadasin and Dmitry Kozhovov, who performed on the G-Force Bars prototype for the G-Force Motorsport team.

The fourth place was Vadim Fedotov and Alexander Kupriyanov, the Kolomenites Bogdan Vavrenyuk and Artem Terentyev closed the five strongest on the prologue. Anastasia Nifontova and Ekaterina Zhadanova in her “tiny” were noted by the sixth place, at the seventh – Sergey Uspensky and Oleg Vperenko. Andrei Rudskoy and Dmitry Karpov, Dmitry Cherkesov and Vladimir Prostakov, as well as Vyacheslav and Elvira Papetskiy also got into the TOP-10.

“It feels in terms of difficulty today,” said Andrei Rudskoy, “the weather presents surprises. Obviously, on the highway there will be wet, that there will be unforeseen circumstances. The northern forest is a home race. Fast. And one of the most difficult races! In 2014, I began a winning series in the test of the T2 Cup of the world here. This is a real festival of sports. Who is the main rival? You yourself! You need to look at others carefully – first of all, look after yourself.

The crews of the GAZ Raid Sport team successfully finished, Alexey Ignatov and Evgeny Pavlov on the 11th line of the general standings and with the third result in the Raid-Sport category, and Alexander Semenov and Dmitry Okhotnikov-in the 12th place of the Absolute and the fourth in his test group.

“This stage differs from others in that high -speed rally roads are alternating with pits and ditches, and all this happens in a narrow forest,” said the navigator of the GAZ Raid Sports Evgeny Pavlov team. There is almost no snow in my native Tver, but here is a real winter – everything is beautiful around, although snow is much less than usual. Today the prologue passed through the fields, but the snow was not so deep that it could be stuck. Brusterers are low, and if earlier they served as protection against trees, then on these racing days they will not become an obstacle.

Press service “Russia-Northern Forest 2025”

The race itself is difficult due to limited time. All participants go along a short route along one route at a similar pace, and the difference at the finish line is measured in second seconds. There is no particular navigation here, so you can not get lost. From the navigators it is only necessary to carefully read the road book so as not to get into the hole and not fly into the forest. In this race, the most attention is paid to piloting. My pilot Alexei Ignatov is all the rest after 13 kilometers of the prologue. This is a specific race that is very different from other stages of the championship. We have an installation how to go, and we follow it.

In motor skills, the leadership was captured by the CFMOTO Team pilot Daniil Vlasov, performing on the ATV CFMOTO CFORCE 1000 EPS, and in class 450 – the Rasul of Shemiuns on the KTM 450 Exc F.

After the prologue, the launch ceremony was held, and the crews drove along the catwalk. And on February 8, on Saturday, the athletes had to drive three special stages: two for 72 kilometers and one – 111 kilometers along a very twisted narrow snowy highway. Based on the results of the draw, to open the second special -stroke on the morning of February 8, the crew Truck Garage Racing Team Vyacheslav Paputsky fell. How did everything go? We will talk about this in the next report. /m

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