The Ural Frontier Association, whose general partner is Ural Automobile Plant JSC, ended a few weeks ago. This time is enough to move away from the minutes, seconds, positions and events of individual special stages and look at the competition in its entirety. Four racing days showed the Southern Urals in completely different ways: fast field tracks were replaced by forest roads, fords, rocky trails and foothills, the weather varied the condition of the track, and outwardly understandable sections more than once turned out to be more difficult than one might have expected.
The leaders of the two leading cargo teams, Sergey Vyazovich from MAZ—SPORTauto and Eduard Nikolaev from KAMAZ-Master, as well as the winners of automobile competitions, Anton Melnikov in Raid-Sport and Alexander Semenov in T2, shared their impressions of the Ural Frontier. Each of them has their own experience of participating in races in the Southern Urals and their own view of the "Ural Frontier", but the assessments turned out to have a lot in common: the character of baha was largely determined by a combination of completely different types of tracks that required the crews to constantly rebuild.
For Sergey Vyazovich, the current Ural Frontier was the first acquaintance with the tracks of the Southern Urals in the format of the Russian Championship stage. After the finish, the pilot admitted that the external simplicity of some special stages turned out to be deceptive, and the unfamiliar features of the track required maintaining high concentration throughout the race — several times underestimating them resulted in a loss of time for the crew.
_"If you look back at the four days of the race, it was most memorable for its unpredictability, despite its apparent simplicity. The special stages looked quite simple and fast, but at some moments there were real traps waiting for us. We knew about them from the impressions of the participants of last year's race, but we still thought that it would pass us by. As a result, we lost quite a lot of time twice. Probably, the complexity of the track was underestimated on our part: when you first see seemingly simple tracks in front of you, you still need to maintain a very high concentration. Here, experience and knowledge of the area really played a big role," he said Vyazovich.
Eduard Nikolaev also highlighted the nature of the route among the main features of the Ural Frontier, but from the point of view of piloting. Throughout the race, the crews had to constantly change the rhythm and adjust to completely different conditions.
_"We were very impressed with this competition. There are very different routes here: High-speed field roads give way to foothills, forests, tall grass, and rocks. Moreover, the stones here are especially treacherous: when you just drive through a rocky area, you see them and learn to read, but here they can be hidden in the grass. Therefore, you need to be able to drive fast, but also “switch the flash drive” in time, as we call it, under rocks, narrow mountain paths, and the forest. It was this diversity that we liked," said Nikolaev.
For Anton Melnikov, the winner of the Raid-Sport competition, the combination of different types of tracks has become one of the characteristic features of the South Ural bakha. After the fifth result on the prologue, his crew gradually rose to the second position, and on the final special stage they became the leaders of their standings.
_"The uniqueness of the race lies in its very name: These are the foothills of the Southern Urals, numerous fords, and rocks — we have hardly seen such a combination at other Russian races. That's why I consider the Ural Frontier a unique and unusual race, with a very interesting terrain. Well, if you're lucky with the weather. And with stones too," said Melnikov.
The winner of T2, Alexander Semenov, formulated the experience of the four-day race even more practically. According to him, speed alone is not enough at the Ural Turn — the result largely depends on how much the crew is able to maintain equipment without losing momentum.
_"At the Ural race, you need to take great care of the car — the wheels, the suspension, so that it takes you to the finish line. And for those who have not traveled here yet, the advice is simple.: learn how to change wheels quickly. If you change them for a long time, you will lose the race. We need to change it quickly," Semenov shared.
And this advice turned out to be far from theoretical: rocks and punctures influenced the course of the competition for several days and continued to change the balance of power until the final special stage.
** What's next?**
Speaking about the future of the Ural Frontier, the participants returned to the peculiarities of the Southern Urals highway. Eduard Nikolaev formulated his wish very clearly: the stage should be carried out further, using the possibilities of the region even more actively.
_"It is absolutely necessary to do this stage. Personally, I really liked it. I believe that it is necessary to come here, train and find even more interesting tracks in the mountains. To really match the name: “Ural Frontier". The Urals are rocks, narrow mountain paths, and forests. Here you need to squeeze the maximum out of the Urals itself. This is very interesting for both piloting and navigation work. Therefore, I advise everyone to take part in this race," said Nikolaev.
It seems that athletes and organizers are looking in the same direction in this wish. According to Alexander Grachev, who was responsible for preparing the trails and compiling the Ural Frontier road books, next year the organizers want to preserve the distinctive features of the route that the participants especially liked.
_"What you definitely want to preserve is the foothills. Everyone liked the mountains very much: grass, rocks, and elevation changes are both beautiful and interesting to the participants. And, of course, a large number of fords. Brody is the calling card of the Southern Urals. This race is notable for its diversity: it starts in the Ural forests and swamps, descends into the steppe, and this year it finished in the mountains," said Grachev.
The organizers also plan to hold the next bach "Ural Frontier" in a linear format — with the movement of the caravan of participants from city to city and new tracks. The preliminary concept assumes 250-350 kilometers of special stages per day and a route through several cities. The organizers expect to bring the total sports distance to a thousand kilometers.
The organizers want to give a special place in the new route to the foothills again. The organizers are considering the possibility of preserving the Republic of Bashkortostan in the geography of the race, through which the route passed in previous years.
_"The whole interest of the Southern Urals is the mountain range, rocks, and elevation differences. Therefore, we will try to make the mountains of Bashkortostan appear on the route again," Grachev added.
This approach is also supported by Ural Automobile Plant JSC, for which the Ural Frontier takes place on its home territory. According to Pavel Yakovlev, General Director of the enterprise **, it is the combination of the sports component and the opportunity to show the peculiarities of the Southern Urals that makes the race significant not only for the participants, but also for the region.
_"It is a great honor for Ural to be the general partner and, in fact, the host of BACH Ural Frontier. We live and work in the Southern Urals, so for us this race is not just a sporting event, but an opportunity to show how unique and beautiful our land is: its foothills, rocky trails, forests and fords. It is very pleasant that the participants noted the very nature of the South Ural trails — their diversity, unpredictability and the need to constantly rebuild. This is the best assessment for us as the host. We are glad that the race continues to develop, and Ural, for its part, is ready to continue supporting this project and hosting it at home," Yakovlev said.
At the same time, a special Sintec Race competition will be developed, conducted with the support of Sintec Lubricants, a manufacturer of high-quality lubricants and technical fluids. This format allows owners of production cars to try their hand at rally raids and complete the same track with established athletes.
This principle is planned to be preserved in the new concept of the Ural Frontier: every day for amateur crews, the most gentle for mass-produced equipment will be selected from several special stages. This way, Sintec Race participants will be able to follow the same route along with the big race, but complete the sports distance in a format adapted for the amateur competition.
And those who have already become familiar with the race seem to have a desire to return to the new "Ural frontier". After the finish, Sergey Vyazovich explained it primarily with a sporting interest: his team's equipment passed the race without serious problems, but the crews' own mistakes left them one step away from the desired result.
_"Our cars performed very well, there were no technical problems, but the crews themselves made mistakes in piloting and tactics. As a result, we stopped a step away from the podium. Therefore, we definitely want to come back here and dot the I's," he said Vyazovich.
The "Ural Frontier" of 2026 has already become history, but the participants clearly left some of the questions they posed for the next year. In the meantime, the organizers are going to make the next route longer, more diverse and connect it even more strongly with the peculiarities of the Southern Urals.
The next meeting is scheduled to take place here, in the Southern Urals, in 2027.