Administrative checks are at full steam at Igora Ski Resort, the venue hosting Baja Russia – Northern Forest, first round of FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup. Most of the local teams fulfilled the formalities already yesterday, today it’s the turn of the big guns like Vasilyev and Gadasin and most of the foreign teams – and, of course, for the scrutineering.
Today’s proceedings started at 8 am but still in darkness with Vasilyev among the first at the administrative checks. There are some rumours that the Italian crews had some problems with the bureaucracy of entering the country so they might not be at the start today afternoon.
The race itself will begin this afternoon with a superspecial of 6 km with a finish at Igora, the ski resort hosting the race HQ, media centre and service park as well. The weather is quite nice for the dreadful “Russian winter”: the temperature is around zero degree with snow covering both the landscape and the track. But for the latter one, the question is for how long as the snow layer is quite thin. It can happen that the crews will face completely different conditions they were preparing so hard for…
Here are some pictures from yesterday:
And some more from today’s administrative checks and scrutineering: