Foreign crews took the podium of the final stage of the Belarusian Rally Championship

November 8, Minsk /Ekaterina Zhilyanina - BELTA/. The final stage of the Belarusian Rally Championship was held in the Braslav district. 27 crews from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania started the race called "Braslav Jaf Tea Rally," as reported to BELTA by Danila Dolmatov, press secretary of the off-road competitions committee of the Belarusian Automobile Federation. In a few hours, participants had to cover 9 gravel special stages with a total length of 81.4 km. Due to the rains that occurred the day before, the surface of the special stages became slippery in many places, and after the first run by the racers, large stones appeared. As a result, there were retirements from the race. Boris Lukomsky crashed his car on SS-2 (second special stage), and the Russian crew of Maxim Tsyganov and Alexey Lukyanuk got into a serious accident on SS-4, which led to the early end of the first section of the rally. The second part of the race proceeded without serious incidents. However, after the finish, several protests and statements were filed by participants regarding the review of results and assigned penalties, which delayed the award ceremony for a couple of hours. The top three places went to foreign crews. Vytautas Švedas and Tomas Balžekas (Mitsubishi Evo) celebrated victory in the Belarusian rally, and it was evident that the Lithuanian crew did it with ease, finishing more than a minute ahead of their closest rivals. Ramūnas Čapkauskas and Tomas Šipkauskas (Mitsubishi Evo) took the second step of the podium, and the Ukrainian crew of Valeriy Gorban and Yevheniy Leonov (Mitsubishi Evo), who showed the second result in the race but received a penalty for touching a chicane, completed the top three in the absolute standings and the B12 class. The Lithuanian crew of Vilmantas Pupšys and Gediminas Račas on Renault Clio proved best in the two-liter B11 class, while Belarusians Dmitry Yakimokho and Olga Zakharova on Citroen C2 won the B10 class. Preliminary championship results indicate that the Ukrainian crew of Volodymyr Petrenko and Dmytro Yarovenko took first place in the absolute standings and the B12 class. Belarusian rally drivers Anatoliy Shimakovsky and Igor Makarchuk maintained second place in the overall standings and first in the B11 class. Belarusian crew of Yury Grishchenkov and Denis Revyako finished third in the absolute standings and second in the B12 class. Belarusians Sergey Yushchik and Roman Shirnyuk are most likely to become the winners in the B10 class. Thus, the Belarusian Rally Championship has concluded. As planned, three rally races will be held in Braslav next season, and three rally sprints will take place in the Minsk and Vitebsk regions. Joint competitions are not ruled out, as was the case this year when one of the stages of the Russian championship was held during the international rally "Slavic Cup." -0-