German racer set a record in conquest of Silk Road route
The team of two Russian drivers, led by Rainer Zietlow, a German racing driver, has journeyed over 12,000 kilometers along the Great Silk Road in record time of five and a half days.
On 20 August this year the group left the Chinese southern city of Shanghai for Venice. The participants of the campaign “Tiguan Silk Road - Shanghai-Venice”, having traveled 12 575 km through China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, arrived in Venice in just 5 days 18 hours 22 minutes.
The expedition drove SUV Volkswagen Tiguan 1.4 TSI with 150 hp. The car, shod in the tires of the German concern Continental, allowed drivers to easily maneuver on off-road and wet asphalt.
The team made Venice-Shanghai test run before the record-breaking travel.
“The traffic controllers blocked traffic at major intersections for us, saluted and smiled. There were no unexpected stops: the only one was to thank the patrol car — and be supported by another patrol car. So we run across all Turkmenistan, almost without noticing it, for 6 hours”, remember warmly Rainer Zietlow, Peter Bakanov and Dmitry Makarov the transit via Turkmenistan in their blog at official web-site Tiguan-Silkroad.com.
