After a little rest during service, the competing field went on to tackle the special stages of the Friday's second loop.

Alexander Zheludov had succeeded in adding another second and a half to his advantage over Marco Tempestini before his car caught a fire 4 kilometres into SS5. The crew managed to put out the fire, but couldn't make their Impreza keep going. And so Marco Tempestini inherited the overall lead, which makes his task for tomorrow quite easier: in order to win the East European Cup he can finish the day third (but not lower than second in the race). 

The talented driver from Izhevsk Alexander Nebogatikov, who in his rookie 2008 season impressed with his speed in a front-wheel drive car, is now making big progress behind the wheel of a 4WD Subaru. Second place on SS5, and now again the runner-up spot on SS6...

As for Vadim Makarov, who took the lead in the Russian classification after Zheludov's retirement, he soon also fell victim of mechanical problems when the gearbox on his car unfortunately broke down on SS6.

But it's too early to speak about the day's results: everything is now mixed up "thanks" to some completely drunk spectators who decided to watch the rally cars on SS6 too close to the road. They didn't respond to numerous warnings from policemen about the danger of standing in that place (not even speaking about how many times it was said before the event...). And in the corner, in thick dust (from the broken car of Vadim Makarov in front) the car of Gennadiy Broslavskiy hit those careless spectators, who were then taken with injuries (a broken ankle and a shoulder slip) to the nearest hospital, where the high level of alcoholic intoxication was also confirmed. There was a police post at the accident place, and the present policemen will serve as witnesses.

That's why we'll wait until the stewards' decision about the notional time for those crews who weren't able to complete the day's final stage after the accident before we speak about overall positions. And below we'll just mention the most important facts of the evening loop's first and penultimate stages.

After Sergey Naryshkin's retirement on TC-4 soon after the service it was Evgeniy Rogov who took the lead in Group A6. However it's only 8.5 seconds that separate him from hard-charging Dmitriy Voronov.

The N2 category saw its fourth stage winner in four stages, and this winner also became the new class leader in the general standings. It was Ruslan Kucher, who also managed to keep his lead after SS5. But this fact didn't deprive the group of its fifth new winner, who came out to be Dmitriy Bragin.

No changes in N3, not taking into account that Igor Storchak increased his overall advantage over Alexander Goncharov up to 4 minutes. In Group A7 Mikhail Milov was left the only competitor, but not for long: Andrey Petukhov, who punctured a tyre on SS5 and decided to stop for the day, has already applied for SupeRally.