LADOGA TROPHY RAID, RUSSIA |
8 days, 1200km, 250 competitors, 7 classes, 24 hour daylight, all deep in the Russian forests. Stages are a cross between a winch challenge and a comp safari, with elements of an orienteering challenge. There’s also dune racing, beach racing and even a midnight 40 mile long comp safari!! There are classes from near standard, to Proto and ‘Raid’ which you can enter 2 vehicles together to work through the stages in a team. And the most amazing thing? The entry fee for all of this is less than about £220 a vehicle!! |
If you ask, we’ll talk you through the visa procedure as well, which again, isn’t daunting once you know what to do. To enter the competition you have to fill in the online form from the official website and send your payment. We’ve had quite a bit of difficulty with this in the past, so you can send you money (with ours, in one lump sum) to my partner Marina who lives in St Petersburg, by Western Union, and she’ll take it to the office in person.
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| Grand Tourism: Essentially a ‘scenic’ route following the main route, although there was some definite panel damage on some of the trucks. You do the competitive beach and dune races and the night orienteering stage to get you finishing places. Tourism: This is what we did in the yellow Discovery 666 in 2006. This is NOT green laning. In a near standard vehicle this is HARD off roading, with dashboard deep submersion, bad panel damage and much winching to be done. The route is similar to the main competition but you have longer maximum times on the stages. TR1: For basically standard vehicles. You are allowed minor modifications, but a big winch in this class would be the first step to making you competitive. You go into the stages first so ostensibly they are not too destroyed by having 100 vehicles winch through in front of you. This is a very competitive class, the Russians will destroy you here!! Ade and Crazy Paul in their Series 3 managed to do the first stage in 27 hours, while the winning time was 2 and a half hours.This is no easy way to do Ladoga! TR2: This is the spec of vehicle that most of the challenge in the UK would meet. You are allowed bigger tyres, suspension mods, body lifts etc. You do harder routes, supposedly, but there are only three types of route, the bits you race on, the bits you have to winch through, and the bits that you just think, “Oh, sh**!” Loads more of the third variety in this class. RAID: This is the class we competed in in 2007. TR2 routes, but with three vehicles in convoy. This sounds like a nice way to do this competition with your mates, but you really do need to have similar spec cars and have everyone working together very slickly, otherwise you will be forever holding each other up in different places. You will have to go as flat out as possible at every moment to have a chance of getting through the stages in time. TR3: Big boy territory. Basically hand built, or bodged machines that look nothing like the base vehicles they once were. The key words in the regs are ‘free construction’. They have to be practical machines, light, huge footprints and completely waterproof. It’s normal for the vehicles to have 4 winches, 2 hydraulic and 2 electric. You will also need to have an ingenious way to triple the length of your winch rope as you will need to squint to see the nearest tree the other side of the bog. This is seriously hard going and the campsites at night are always flashing from welding repairs. Your co driver will definitely require the ability to swim!! PROTO: Top flight off-roading. The off roading is so hard that you don’t even get to see it, the route is so inaccessible, you only hear about what has been happening in the stages. Just from watching the DVD you cannot get the full impression of the severity of the conditions in this class, or fully appreciate the complexity and ingenuity of some of the vehicles. This is where the amazing Frog lives! Or you can just come for a right good laugh and say that you entered Proto in Ladoga! It’s the same regs as TR3, but with 40in tyres as the max, but although has a lot less competitors than TR3, Proto is of course the most prestigious.
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