IB Translations team [almost] cracks the Top 10 at L.U.C. Chopard Classic Weekend Rally.

Last Sunday, on 31 May, IB Translations team took part in yet another classic car rally.

Click http://kommersant.ru/doc/2738696 for the Kommersant’s coverage of the event.
A few pictures: http://m.ru.hellomagazine.com/stil-zhizni/tekhnika/9940-svetlana-bondarchuk-i-drugie-zvezdy-prinyali-uchastie-v-ralli-retro-avtomobiley.html
Quite a few pictures: http://m.buro247.ru/events/photo-reports/chopard-proveli-ezhegodnoe-ralli-retro-avtomobiley.html
Find us here: http://rblogger.ru/2015/05/31/l-u-c-chopard-classic/

This year, the race welcomed 66 crews, including 12 competing in a separate programme in the Veterans category (for cars made before 1946). 15 out of the remaining 44 cars did not finish the race. We were supposed to rank seventh, but as a result of an unfortunate referee mistake leading to a wrong entry in the score sheet, the final results saw us on the 11th place. Sadly, we had no time to raise objections and change the official result.

Mikhail Tsyferov, driver: “It was a challenging race – although when was it ever simple? The organisers worked hard to select the vertical profile of the road. We also suffered from some technical failures. Right at the start, engine power dropped because of insufficient lubrication of the braided throttle cable, which hampered it. As a result, the maximum speed was capped at 80 km/h, down from 120 km/h. Besides, we were not able to max out the engine, so it hurt our uphill journey chances. At times, it felt like we’d need to get out of car and push it. By sheer luck, this was not needed. Naturally, we are disappointed after savouring the taste of victory just a week ago when we finished fourth. As we know, weak teams compete for minutes, strong ones for seconds, and we were competing for watches. Unfortunately, we haven’t made it to the podium, so no watches for us. That’s fine. We will be back next year and we will be much stronger then.”

Konstantin Golota, co-driver: “It was an easy breezy kind of race. The organisers are hardly able to arrange a challenging one. The road book indicated distances between all junctions, so no wild guesses here. This led to tighter results and made on-the-road competition way more important with the need to demonstrate certain average speed on certain distance. This is, unfortunately, not our strongest skill, but it seems we were able to crack the code, so watch us deliver breakthrough results next season. Car designs of other participants were a separate delight. There was a Soviet traffic police car from the 1970s, a Volga ambulance with its crew including actor and producer Igor Ugolnikov, singer and songwriter Valery Syutkin and musician Evgeny Margulis, all wearing white lab coats, writer and performer Mikhail Zhvanetsky in one of the cars... An exciting event altogether!

Now, the results. After opening the season with our best-ever fourth place, at the second stage we confirmed our chances to be a solid Top 10 finisher.

The next rally will take place on 18 July, when Night Moscow will welcome oldtimers for – all of a sudden – a night race. Our crew will not participate due to some logistics restrictions, but please do come by around 6 pm, albeit the venue is not yet known.

There could be another race in the autumn, but the organisers are not sure yet. So, for us, the season is closed, and it was really excellent. We hope to get to the podium and may be even win next year.

On to victory!”