Russian Drag Racing Championship: for the first time ever on the racetrack in Nizhniy Novgorod

During 6-7 August the 2nd stage of Russian Drag Racing Championship took place on the racetrack “Nizhegorodskoe Ring” for the first time ever. Total 72 drivers were participating in joint competitions of RDRC and The Drag Racing Cup of Nizhny Novgorod region.

There were a lot of drivers from different regions of Russia – from Primorskiy Krai to Crimea. Among the cars there were not only specially prepared Nissan Skyline, Nissan GT-R, Chevrolet Corvette,Toyota Soarer and others, but also three ProMods (Pro Modified) – the cars built specially for drag racing. One more joined them during Saturday – Chevrolet Camaro SS of David Vegter, the pilot from Netherlands.

Their exterior seems to be like the popular daily cars, but inside they are aboslutely different from their everyday road prototypes. Usually the power output of dragsters starts from 1000hp, while usage of methanol or nitrous oxide kicks these figures even higher. Such cars can make ¼ mile in 6 seconds and they have to use special parachutes to stop.

All four ProMods were the noisiest, the fastest the most powerful on the dragstrip of “Nizhegorodskoe Ring”. Dodge Viper DT of Dmitry Samorukov is already well known for the audience: 4000hp car participated in the 1st stage in Krasnoyarsk. But there were also the newcomers – Dodge Viper DT (1400hp) of Oleg Kondakov and Topspeed Promod Outlaw of Andrey Kravchenko. All of them are racing in RWD (rear wheel drive) class.

Oleg Kondakov got behind the wheel of such sophisticated car on Friday during the trainings for the first time ever in his life: in next 2 days, he got used to it and participated in the semifinal run with a rather good result of 8,028 seconds at ¼ mile. Promod of Andrey Kravchenko was a newcomer also – it was brought directly from the service garage. That is why it is experiencing “teething problems” stage now, and the 2nd stage of RDRC was mostly a training for him.

Not only Oleg Kondakov and David Vegter were fighting for the win in RWD class – Dmitry Samorukov and Andrey Mulenko with his Chevrolet Corvette Custom Turbo were also there. They have made few runs and Samorukov won. In the final race, he was faster than David Vegter for 0,152 seconds. His result of 6,855 seconds at ¼ mile has become the track record of the dragstrip of “Nizhegorodskoe Ring”.

Dmitry Matveev (Novosibirsk) was one of the main contenders in AWD (all-wheel drive) class, the current AWD champion of Russia. However, he made the false start in the quarterfinals in a run with Dmitry Mandrikov (Novosibirsk). In the final run, Mandrikov lost to Alexey Krivolapov (Vladivostok): Dmitry faced the technical problems with his Subaru Impreza.

Oksana Yakovleva (Krasnoyarsk) won in FWD (front wheel drive) – first she has outrun Alexey Kremnev (Murom), and then, in the finals, her townsman Georgy Garakishiev.

Oksana Yakovleva, FWD class: “I am very happy with this win. Especially that I made the quarter in 9,7 seconds ET (which means, the elapsed time without reaction time of the driver). In such a way, we are now among the best FWD results of Europe. It was an expected result, which had to be made by wise steps. Different things happened during the weekend, but we made it. My team knows: if in the beginning I make only 11 seconds, it does not matter I will not make 9 seconds in the finals. We have our own tactics, and thanks to it, I did what I wanted. My goal is to become the champion of Russia, we are ready to it and we are ready to continue racing any time.”

Alexey Krivolapov, AWD class: “We are very happy with this win, because it took a long time for our team to get it. Basically, all we’ve planned – was made. Although, it was rather hot outside – the technics reacted normally, however, it was not as fast as in Krasnoyarsk. We feel good with any racetrack – because we had only one race in our region in May. Trainings were enough – we have made 6 runs during 2 days. Seems like it is not enough – but we have tuned all we needed and have shown the 2nd place in the qualification. Our goal is to win and break 8 seconds. If the next stage will have better traction – we are going to do it next week. Frankly speaking, I am always more happy with the win – I am a former athlete. I come to show the result, to win. While ET – it’s more for my engineer and tuner, which want my car to be as fast as possible.”

Dmitry Samorukov, RWD class: “Thanks for the congratulations with one more win. Yes, one would say it is a good tradition, however for me the good tradition is a new record: national one or the record of the championship. Here we just made a good run: 6,8 seconds. However, it is a track record.

I have quiet messed feelings from the weekend. We were not able to get used to the drag strip. It was rather terrifying to race in the beginning, we had no full power runs: after round of 16 we all had to cut the gun, even experienced David Vegter. It is a new track for us and we will learn it well in the nearest future, maybe the glue was not lying well in some places.

Overall, it was a good 2nd stage of RDRC, good preparations, many thanks to the organizers, especially to the locals – they have provided a very good drag strip so close to Moscow. I think it will be in our championship for a long time, at least for next 3 years. It has good perspectives.”

The 3rd stage of Russian Drag Racing Championship will also take place on the racetrack “Nizhegorodskoe Ring” in less than a week – 13-14 August.

Results of 1 st Stage of Russian Drag Racing Championship:

FWD class (front wheel drive):

1. Oksana Yakovleva (Krasnoyarsk), Honda Civic
2. Georgy Garakishiev (Krasnoyarsk), Mitsubishi Mirage
3. Alexey Kremnev (Murom), Honda Civic

AWD class (all-wheel drive):

1. Alexey Krivolapov (Vladivostok), Nissan Skyline
2. Dmitry Mandrikov (Novosibirsk), Subaru Impreza
3. Vladislav Kasheev (Tomsk), Nissan Skyline GT-R

RWD class (rear wheel drive):

1. Dmitry Samorukov (Moscow), Dodge Viper DT
2. David Vegter (Netherlands), Chevrolet Camaro SS
3. Andrey Mulenko (Omsk), Chevrolet Corvette Custom Turbo

Russian Drag Racing Championship – the straight-line acceleration competition between cars on the ¼ mile drag strip (402.33 meters) in three classes: front wheel drive FWD, rear wheel drive RWD and all-wheel drive AWD.

Four competition stages are planned in 2016 season: Krasnoyarsk, twice in Nizhny Novgorod and Grozny.

Russian Drag Racing Championship is hosted by company “Dragtimes” and promoted by SMP Racing.
Russian Drag Racing Championship is held under the aegis of Russian Automobile Federation.