Abu Dhabi Baja Challenge: Podium for Sergei Remennik!
After outstanding performances in the European Rally Championship behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X in the ERC-2 category and participation in the Russian Championship rounds in an Oreca Suzuki Swift R4, Sergei Remennik has expanded his expertise to a new discipline. In 2022, he secured a victory in his inaugural event, the Baja Russia Northern Forest, a unique competition in the world of rally-raids.
The debut baja for the crew took place in February. It was notable for being the only stage of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas held on a snow-ice surface, rather than the usual dirt and sand tracks for rally-raids. Despite his lack of experience, Sergei Remennik did not hesitate to face the unfamiliar conditions. He even engaged in a dispute with Anastasia Nifontova, a highly experienced rally-raid competitor. This resulted in him being awarded first place in the SSV category in a Can-Am Maverick X3.
However, this was merely the start. Despite the absence of a structured training program, Remennik maintained his driving skills by participating in karting competitions, where he was part of the same team as his son, Mikhail. Remennik now faces a new challenge: an event on the desert sands.
Abu Dhabi Baja Challenge — New Chapter in Career
The Abu Dhabi Baja Challenge commenced in 2023 and has rapidly established itself as a significant event in the global motorsport calendar, attracting competitors from across the Gulf region. The series will comprise four rounds, scheduled to take place between October 2024 and April 2025. Each round comprises a course of over 100 kilometres of sandy tracks, where competitors perform in a variety of vehicles, including cars, SSVs, motorcycles and quads. The key differentiator from traditional rally-raids is that each driver completes a 25-kilometre track, undertaking five laps without a co-driver. Drivers must rely solely on their ability to navigate the route, which is marked with flags and checkpoints.
Sergei Remennik was joined in the SxS Pro standings by Maxim Deykin, Sergey Karyakin and Alexei Shmotev. All drivers completed the event to a high standard, having fully completed the qualifying distance. The track in Tilal Swaihan presented a challenging combination of speed and treachery. It demanded not only the application of driving skills and the ability to navigate the challenging sand surface, but also the demonstration of competent control of the vehicle. Remennik was therefore placed in second position in his category.
SxS Pro Standings Results:
- Maxim Deykin — 5 laps, 1:59:38,137 min
- Sergei Remennik — 5 laps, +10:28,244 min
- Sergey Karyakin — 5 laps, +11:04,904 min
- Alexei Shmotev — 5 laps, +20:07,403 min
The success of this venture was made possible by the technical expertise of the BIG RED RACING team, which has recently expanded its operations into the motorsport sector. Previously, the company’s activities were limited to tourist trips on the sand. However, it is now pursuing a clear strategy of professional racing development.
What’s Next?
The success in Abu Dhabi proves that Remennik is meticulously preparing and adapting to new conditions. He continues to excel in his field, with many promising opportunities on the horizon. Participation in all events of the Abu Dhabi Baja Challenge and a foray into the World Cup round are planned!
Before the start of the Sunday special stages the crew of Remennik and Fedorov lost to the duet of Nifontova and her co-driver Ekaterina Zhadanova for only eight seconds. Agree, it was a shame not to try to compete with them for the first place in the T3 standings of the Russian Championship.
Sergei Remennik, driver,“We are at the finish line – the goal has been achieved! That’s what we did, it was cool. I can say that I enjoyed driving the long stages and I think we will continue. These were the first cross-country rallies in my life. Yaroslav and I have so far driven the longest special stages, probably only in Finland – there is a special stage “Ouninpohja”, about 30 kilometers. Yaroslav has experience in Corsica, where the special stages are 50 kilometers long. But there has never been such an experience of 120 kilometers until now, now there is. It is very interesting from the point of view of how to prepare yourself, to count your strength for such a distance. I understand that this is not the longest distance, as in multi-day marathons. Experienced racers say that at the Baja Russia Northern Forest the advantage is on the side of the classic rally drivers and I agree with them. I only missed the usual notes, because in some places it was possible to push hard from jumps to closed corners. Because you leave the corner and you understand that you could put pressure on the gas to the last there. But, as my senior comrades told me, the cross-country rallies principle is: “if you don’t see, you don’t drive”. Well, I tried not to drive if I didn’t see it”.
Yaroslav Fedorov, co-driver,“It was very unusual for me here, as if I were a useless element. I kept silence a lot here, I have never been so silent at the special stages. There was even an opportunity to chat during the day at Baja, so it seems to me that I underperformed. But we are at the finish line – this is the most important thing and a very cool experience. I liked today, because the special stages were more like roads in our classic sense. And if at the first passage we were turned around twice, now we had an absolutely clean passage. We are waiting for the official results; something tells me that we did a good job”.
Sergei Remennik, driver, “Everything that happens with Yaroslav and me this weekend is marked as “surprise”. We are surprised by everything that happens around us. It is indeed a very interesting experience, an interesting adventure. But let’s draw conclusions in a more relaxed atmosphere when we get to the finish line. Our task is to finish this race. But what is happening with the track surface… makes the finish seem more and more illusive to us! 
I’m really surprised about Anastasia Nifontova! It’s a very pleasant feeling, an incredible surprise, because I saw girls who ride next to me in a kart – they go fast and can be faster than me. But in a rally?! Anastasia is the first person who outraces me. And I’m impressed. 
And now let us talk about the most important thing – the results. According to preliminary calculations, Sergei Remennik and Yaroslav Fedorov finished the day in the fifth place of the baja overall standings (02:09 min behind the day leader) and the second in the T4 standings of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas round. The first day leader is the crew of Tomasz Bialkowski, followed by Vladimir Vasilyev, Anastasia Nifontova, Sergey Uspensky in the order of finish.
Sergei Remennik, driver, “My old friend Sergey Karyakin, whose name is well known to everyone who follows at least the Dakar, has long been beckoning me to cross-country rallies. In addition, it is interesting to try something new, and the World Cup is such an interesting series. There are also the rounds of the Russian Championship and the Eurasia Zone Cup. We’ve applied for everything and we’ll try it! It is interesting to try this discipline. On snow and ice the Maverick impressed me much more than I expected. I would say that it is somewhat similar to the nimble Suzuki Swift R4 in which we trained. 
Yaroslav Fedorov, co-driver, “I have been looking at the cross-country rallies with interest for a long time, because both drivers with whom I previously performed in classic rally – Alexey Ignatov and Evgeny Sukhovenko, were factory drivers of the GAZ Raid Sport team. They talked a lot about this discipline, always very interesting, positive. They talked about some adventures. Therefore, there was an interest in the discipline.
Changing discipline and sports car is always difficult for a driver to adapt, because doing one sport for a long time he gets used to its features and a certain level of concentration. The basic idea of races for the regularity of movement with additional high-speed competitions is the same here, but in classic rallies, unlike the cross-country ones, the crew consisting of a driver and a co-driver moves according to the instructions of the pacenotes that he makes for himself during the recce. It describes all the corners and difficult moments of movement on the special stages, and the length of one special stage rarely exceeds 30 kilometers.
After a service break, the final part of the racing day went on a well-known forest special stage along Lake Akakul in the Ozersky District of the Chelyabinsk Region. A blizzard raged all over, sweeping the roads and throwing snow dust into the air with white curtains, and the wind chilling reached -41°C. Despite the difficult weather conditions, the rally participants reached the finish line without incidents, only six crews could not finish – the reasons for the retirements were related to technical issues.
Sergei Remennik, driver, The rally went fine, it seems, we’ve reached all our goals! During the last two special stages there was such a “safety struggle”, because the roads were swept, we could see nothing in a snow dust; in some places we touched an asphalt with our wheels – it was slippery there, but in the forest part of the route it was loose and difficult to turn. I also observed my Kyshtym’s tradition – to miss some corner and drive straight ahead (past the special stage).
In addition to tackling the test tasks, the crew of Sergei Remennik and Marina Danilova won the 2021 Malachite Rally, leaving the closest pursuer 1.5 minutes behind them.
After the recent victory in Asbest, Sergei Remennik and Marina Danilova continue to “tame” the Oreca Suzuki Swift R4 on the Chelyabinsk region tracks. The main philosophy of the extensive test program is to learn how to communicate with the kit car on an equal footing, as it was with the previous production sports vehicle, in order to go back to the FIA European Rally Championship tracks.
Sergei Remennik, driver, “We continue to study this car; of course, on such roads the maximum speed that we had half of the special stage is not enough. Somewhere a gps sensor showed that our speed was 165 km/h; the roads are very fast here. On the second part of today’s roads we’ve been driving rather carefully; after all, the 1.6-liter engine is weak, when you start to slide very hard, it slows down. Therefore, you need to try to drive this car as straight as possible, but in low and medium gears you can confidently ride sideways. 
With my co-driver we have the opposite learning process – after the fact that Marina Danilova and I won together and even received the titles of International Masters of Sports for this, it’s time for me to learn how to drive according to the pace notes!
Sergei Remennik, driver, “The main idea of participation in this rally was that due to the difficult previous year, we were not able to test the car, although the guys brought it in the autumn. My first acquaintance with Suzuki took place at the beginning of last week – we first tried to drive on ice without loads, then we tried several short sections of roads along which special stages pass in summer. Alexey Lukyanuk, my friend and coach, came and we worked with the pacenotes – I have a lot to remember and recover after a long sports break. And the task for the race is to drive it and finish, get acquainted with the car and learn how to work with it. It is the biggest challenge in the rally to follow the notes as quickly as possible after such a long break”.
A novelty of Asbest rallies – an ice speed section created on the surface of the flooded part of the quarry – opened the second section. The ice turned out to be more suitable for the nimble Suzuki, which found it easier to leave any corner, than for the clumsy Mitsubishi; and Sergei Remennik reduced the 2.5-second gap to Alexey Mironov, turning it into an almost seven-second advantage. The time gap at the race finish line between the two drivers, representing the miners’ dynasties, was 20.7 seconds.
As a reminder, the crew of Sergei Remennik and Marina Danilova, participating in the competition in R4 international class vehicles, did not receive points in the national championship after the rally. Thus, technically, Alexey Mironov and Dmitry Petukhov became the winners of the third round of the Russian Rally Cup in the overall standings.
Dmitry Myachin and Alexey Lukyanuk have joined forces, sharing the duties of a driver and a co-driver, in order to discover the Suzuki Swift R4 capabilities in competitive mode. Replacing each other as driver and co-driver, went a total of 178 kilometers of the racing distance – they tested the car capabilities in action, identified a number of issues requiring study to improve the Suzuki Swift, experimented with the settings and realized that the car is ready to go fast!
Dmitry Myachin,“This morning Alexey has driven through the Mokrinsky SS – it has been fast; it’s a pity that I had no time to raise my head to see how to do it, I’ve tried to read notes to him normally. So to speak, having cheered up, I drove the same special stage myself and, it should be noted, I liked how it turned out! I got used to the four-wheel drive pretty well for the first race and, of course, made mistakes. But they are connected not with the fact that I don’t know how a 4WD car behaves, but with the fact that I haven’t driven according to the notes for a year and a half. The car is very understandable for those who have never sat behind the wheel of an all-wheel drive car!
The purpose of such a large-scale test work and verification of sports equipment is obvious – this car will continue to take part in major national and international competitions, which the rally team will announce in the future.