On the evening of Saturday, September 28, NTV showed the first episode of the “Russia Steers!” Program, announced as “the world's first automotive talent show.” Motorists from different parts of the country met on a specially built for the filming circuit.
As the host of the program Nikolai Fomenko emphasized, the participants in the show are “the most ordinary drivers that you meet on the road.”
Of the thousands of applicants for participation in the contest, the jury selected 70 people. In the first issue, all contestants passed an individual test (for each of which the creators of the program came up with an original name). The key requirement for the participants was to observe the timing: if the contestant copes with the test in the allotted time, all three members of the jury give him a green light to participate in the next stage.
All drivers demonstrated unique driving skills and spectacular car stunts, which are usually tough for experienced riders or stuntmen.
The first contestant - a resident of Rostov-on-Don Vladimir Tretyak - managed, sending the car into a controlled drift, to park it in a row with other equipment. The jury called the performance “Tretiak back in action” perfect.
Another participant in the show, Anna Samokhina, by her own admission, is constantly struggling with the "dumb rejection" of women in motorsport and sees her mission in proving the opposite. Her performance was called "Vertical Racing" - Samokhina was to call on a 6.5 m high wall and pierce the balloons with blades fixed on the nose of the car. In the allotted time, she managed to burst most of them, leaving only three.
“You can’t imagine what the racer from the car sees: she sees only the ceiling. This is on the verge of fiction. I consider all the balls burst, ”commented Samokhina’s speech, member of the jury, USSR champion in motor racing Mikhail Gorbachev.
Another member of the jury, racer Vitaly Petrov decided to try his strength in the test. But even he could not immediately pierce the three remaining balls.
Perhaps the most filigree in the first issue of the program “Russia Steers!” Was the performance of the excavator driver, “ladle virtuoso” Danil Ugryumov from Yekaterinburg.
In a test called “One Left,” he had to use an excavator to turn on the phone, open one bottle, turn on the lighter, and unscrew the lid of the other bottle. Like previous contestants, he received all three green signals.
No less spectacular was the performance of Fyodor Dzierzyka from Volgograd, entitled "Let's go and eat." The participant had to cut three vegetables with a knife attached to the machine.
“800 horsepower, and the car is driven to the nearest millimeter,” Gorbachev noted with enthusiasm.
Another unusual test was to pass the 65-year-old resident of the Samara region Pelageya Borisova - great-grandmother, who already has four great-grandchildren. At half the car, she had to overcome the "snake" from start to finish without hitting a single subject. The test is rightly called the "Little Half."
A contestant with 47 years of driving experience managed to meet the allotted time. Mikhail Gorbachev decided to compete with her - the driver completed the task in half a minute.
“The roads are blocked not because the government is traveling, but because Mikhail Gorbachev is traveling,” Fomenko joked.
With the skill of a jeweler, a Petersburger Nikita Merkushev coped with his assignment Tutelka Tutelka. He had to drive through three walls, sideways hitting the finely cut outline of a car in the wall. And in the test “Without brakes,” the driver from Yaroslavl, Bogdan Bulychev, managed to open the hood of a vehicle in motion and pour non-freezing fluid into the tank.
“Fulfilled the dream of all Russian motorists,” Gorbachev commented on the driver’s skills.
Motorists from Voronezh Denis Sidorov and Marina Buri did not go to the semifinals. The contestants performed the trick on a GAZ-66 machine: their task was to drive along the road from glass glasses without breaking them.
Contrary to the regulations, a professional pilot Anton Ladygin decided to participate in the show. In the test, Darts Vader. Russian version ”the participant had to drive a car and dart to break balls. Ladygin coped with the task impeccably, however, the members of the jury of the show remained faithful to the rules of the competition.
The best driver of Russia
The launch of the program (then called Drive Master) NTV channel announced in early summer. It was noted that people who are not involved in motor sports on a professional level will be able to participate in it.
According to the creators of the project, one of its main tasks is to destroy stereotypes associated with motorsport. For example, to show that complex tricks on the track are subject to women (including retirement age).
Tests in the qualifying round of the show for each participant are prepared individually. In the semifinals of the contestants are waiting for the task of particular difficulty. The culmination of the show is expected to determine who in Russia drives the car the best.
The jury of the project is the first Russian in Formula 1, the pilot of the SMP Racing program, Vitaly Petrov, the USSR champion in auto racing, automotive expert Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as Nikolai Fomenko, international master of sports in Russia. He, along with actress Polina Maximova, leads the program.