“Unreal” contains the letters U, r, a, l.

It’s also a word that could be used to describe Stage 8 of the Silk Way Rally for Ural Motorsport.

In a comically cruel Saturday, two of the team’s three trucks rolled onto their sides just a few kilometers after starting the dune section. In both cases, the trucks were climbing tall dunes but didn’t have enough power to complete the ascent, instead turning sideways before tumbling down.

Anton Kushnikov found himself sandwiched between his truck and the ground as his truck landed on its left side. He was trying to climb a dune that he estimated was five stories high, then tried to turn to go in another direction as a more agile vehicle like an SSV would before he ended up rolling. A sweeper truck had to come help.

Yuri Naiman landed driver’s side up after what he admittedly overestimated his truck’s power. After being stuck sideways for 30 to 40 minutes, he was pulled back onto his wheels by Bogdan Karimov from KAMAZ.

“I thought our truck looked good only on the left side,” Naiman quipped. “The right side also looks beautiful, albeit a bit damaged by the sand.

“We went up a hill and didn’t have enough power, so the car stalled. This was a very stupid mistake by me: I thought it would throw me to the right, but at that moment it tipped over. We were lucky that Bogdan Karimov was driving behind us; he immediately stopped, opened the door, helped us get out of the truck. All the crews helped us turn our truck over. For that, we are very grateful; if they had not helped us, we would probably still be lying there.”

Naiman continued the race from there, only to get stuck again on a ridge after committing what he called “another stupid mistake” because the truck didn’t have enough power. This time, he managed to escape the jam by switching to a lower gear. As luck would have it, a bottle of scalding hot water came loose and spilled in the cockpit just after that, burning his leg until he took his shoe off and let it cool.

In the end, he finished tenth overall and seventh in T5. The truck’s bodywork was mostly fine save for some cosmetic damage, while the only concern inside it was a leaking oil cap that forced Naiman to drive more conservatively.

Their teammate Alexey Popov made it through the dunes on four wheels, but he lost a lot of time too because he also got stuck.

The Urals weren’t the only ones struggling on Saturday. In fact, it seemed like almost everyone had some sort of incident. Fellow truck driver Alexey Ignatov from GAZ also fell on his side and needed to be pulled back by a MAZ.

Pavel Andreev basically has the T1 win locked up if he survives the final three days because his closest rival Andrey Rudskoy experienced a myriad of problems. Rudskoy, whose chances were already low enough as he was over an hour and a half back in the overall, crashed into a gully and partly caught fire. Once that was put out, he ran out of fuel and the clutch began to slip. By the time he reached the finish, only one of his wheels was functioning.

The Zavkhan dunes were so treacherous that some drivers like Mikhail Shklyaev, Vladimir Moiseev, and Vitaliy Murylev decided to skip them even if it meant a penalty. Taking the added time was probably for the best in Shklyaev’s case too as his hands were already full with an overheating engine and no power steering in the closing 70 kilometers. Likewise, Murylev didn’t have his engine turbo which he attributed to a fan issue that arose in Stage 7 but couldn’t fix due to marathon rules.

Most bikes also bailed out without penalty. Doing so was a no-brainer for BN Racing given their riders have prostheses.

“There were many ways to fall onto these rocks, seriously injuring yourself and damaging the equipment so that you won’t be able to go anywhere tomorrow. The risk wasn’t worth it,” explained team co-leader Anton Rene. “Our main goal and victory as an adaptive team is to finish, and ideally with the whole team. Thus, my mission today was to bring Alexander (Makarov, who has a prosthetic left hand) to the finish. When we entered the dunes, we hit two or three waypoints and passed some of the dunes, then it became clear that we needed to go around. The dunes were loose, and a lot of energy would be spent on them. I realized that if we went further, we would most likely have to be evacuated.”

Ilya Shcheglov, the main challenger to Murun Purevdorj in the Moto overall, retired from the race due to an injury he sustained after crashing on Friday. Purevdorj was the fastest rider, but had an hour added to his time because he missed two checkpoints in the dunes. He attributed the mistake to his ERTF failing so he had to follow a KAMAZ’s tracks.

As a result, Purevdorj dropped to third among bikes for Stage 8 behind G-Moto Challenge riders Ekaterina Zhadanova and Ivan Li. Both opted to sit out the dunes as well.

Siarhei Viazovich won the stage for Auto, beating Eduard Nikolaev by 3:48. He also regained the overall lead as he had 11:12 on Anton Shibalov after trailing him by 1:30; Shibalov falls to third and 9:42 back, while Nikolaev sits second and 5:21 behind.

Stage 8 winners

Auto

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1	13	204	Pavel Andreev	404 Racing Team	8:07:26
T2	20	215	Maksatmyrat Danatarov	Federation of Automobile Sport of Turkmenistan	29:00:00
T3	6	205	Roman Rusinov	G-Drive Racing	5:48:23
T5	1	302	Siarhei Viazovich	MAZ-SPORTauto	4:41:34
Open	11	223	Anatoly Kuznetsov	Anatoly Kuznetsov	7:44:43

Moto

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
Motorally 450	3	11	Murun Purevdorj	Team Mongolia	6:50:05
Motorally Quad	4	176	Alexey Zverev	RM Sport	8:10:37
Motorally Open	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A	DNF
G-Moto Challenge	1	30	Ekaterina Zhadanova	DRC Racing Team	6:29:49

Leaders after Stage 8

Auto

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1	10	204	Pavel Andreev	404 Racing Team	22:18:55
T2	21	215	Maksatmyrat Danatarov	Federation of Automobile Sport of Turkmenistan	47:17:15
T3	7	207	Alexey Cherkesov	Alexey Cherkesov	21:24:58
T5	1	302	Siarhei Viazovich	MAZ-SPORTauto	17:59:47
Open	11	223	Anatoly Kuznetsov	Anatoly Kuznetsov	24:37:03

Moto

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
Motorally 450	1	11	Murun Purevdorj	Team Mongolia	22:53:48
Motorally Quad	5	176	Alexey Zverev	RM Sport	31:36:06
Motorally Open	16	59	Grigory Lein	SWD Racing	130:25:57
G-Moto Challenge	2	71	Ivan Li	Ivan Li	23:33:04

Featured image credit: Ural Motorsport