While foreign sportsmen will be fighting for the laurels of the East European Rally Cup, Russian (as well as Ukrainian) crews will come to Novorossiysk to sort things out in the National championship.

In the overall classification almost all the medals are already settled. Among drivers it was the Swedish driver Patrik Flodin who won the series with two events still to spare. The runner-up spot went to Andrey Zhigunov (it's worthy of note that in this millennium the crew of brothers Zhigunov/Ter-Oganes'yants has taken championship medals every year, and this season is no exclusion). Last year's champion Alexander Zheludov took the Bronze.

In the co-drivers' classification Igor Ter-Oganes'yants took his sixth championship title. Second position is currently being held by Goran Bergsten, but Zheludov's co-driver Irina Kolomeitseva is quite capable of moving the Swede down to third step of the podium. Theoretically there could have been another contender for the bronze medal in face of Ain Heiskonen (co-driver to Kaspar Koitla), however the Estonian crew won't take part in "Novorossiysk Rally of Russia": there was a last-minute change in their plans, and instead of Novorossiysk the sportsmen will go to their national rally "Saaremaa".

However the overall bronze is not as important for the Estonians as the Gold in the R3 category. Four victories in a row would have definitely named the winners in the group... if a "quorum" had been made - at least 10 classified participants with points. Ahead of Novorossiysk there are only nine such competitors, however there will compete a fast and experienced driver Mikhail Milov. He can't fight for the season's podium, but he can make a good present for Koitla and Heiskonen by scoring points: only in this case will the championship in the R3 category be declared accomplished.

Silver medals are also granted (in case of "quorum") to Sergey Bakulin and his co-driver Dmitry Zakiev, while the Bronze is to be taken by Anatoliy Shimakovskiy and Igor Makarchuk: none of other third place contenders entered the Novorossiysk rally.

In the R2 category the leading trio will fight for medals only among themselves: they are already uncatchable for other rivals, but each one can eventually take the Gold. Dmitry Voronov, Evgeniy Rogov, Igor Storchak - that's how they're placed ahead of "Novorossiysk Rally of Russia", but we can only guess in what order their surnames will come after the unpredictable and tough race. Among the co-drivers Borislav Demchinskiy and Alexey Starodubtsev will fight for first and second, while third is already guaranteed to Marina Danilova.

The R1 category promises to deliver the hottest action, because there're four contenders for victory in the championship: Vladimir Kabanov/Andrey Lazarev, Ruslan Kucher/Natalya Franchuk, Arkadiy Bogomolov/Oleg Zimin and Dmitry Bragin/Valeriy Kolchugin. All four crews are renowned and experienced sportsmen and, of course, dangerous rivals. The fight for the runner-up spot is also open between Mikhail Skripnikov (unfortunately his co-driver Anton Grechko doesn't have enough points to fight for medals) and Andrey Petukhov with Vasiliy Krichevskiy. Dmitry Gorchakov can fight for the bronze medal (unlike his co-pilotess Anna Zavershinskaya).