The participants of the Olympic Games in Vancouver are complaining of a lack snow...but there are no such complaints in the Leningradsky region! There is certainly enough snow for everyone here!

SS1 provided a lot of news, but unfortunately not all of it was pleasant.

First of all there are changes in the leaders' group – five crews dropped out of the Top 10! The first bad luck fell to last year's winner Boris Gadasin. Due to the damage of brake disk on his G-Force Proto. Fortunately, Boris managed to finish but dropped 13 minutes to the leader. Unlucky number...

The victim of the local snowdrifts was Balasz Szalay from Hungary was stuck for almost an hour and is now nearly an hour off the lead. 58 minutes, to be exact.

Many other participants ran into technical troubles. Alexander Zheludov had problems with a wheel, Vladimir Frolov – with the turbo, Nikolay Shapovalov – with the engine on his Toyota. Binjamin Dzhepaev's UAZ overheated and he had to finish the stage with the hood open and Ilya Kuznetsov had to stop because of engine problems. But before going off the road Ilya hadn an accident! According to information from the TC, the car of Kuznetsov/Neshin collided with the car of Sergey Volkov. Alexander Oleynikov's Mitsubishi Pajero, which was between them, managed to escape the collision.

Well, that's enough about troubles – let's talk about the competition itself. All though the stage three leaders were striving for victory - Krzystof Holowczyc, Boris Gadasin and Alexander Zheludov. But Gadasin, the double-winner of the Russian Championship, lost time and Zheludov, the double winner of the FIA Baja Cup, went off the road. So the Pole won the second special stage.

And so now there are new names in the Top 10. The new leader of Group T2, Alexey Yaskov finished 5th overall and leapt 20 positions, Aldis Vilcanc was 6th, then Alexander Oleynikov, now taking 2d place in Group T2. Followed by Yury Borovikov and Arthur Murashkin. Nuno Matos finished 10th place and has taken the 3d position in Group T2.

In the Russian Championship Alexander Zheludov is now the leader, while in the Latvian Championship Aldis Vilcanc is at the head of the field.

There is one more special stage for today...