Located in southern Kazakhstan, near the border with Kyrgyzstan, the city of Almaty hosted the annual off-road festival, since 1996. After the death of the first president of Almaty Autosport Federation, Nikolay Maslov in 2002, the event was named "Maslov Cup" in his honor. The two-day racing meeting was held every December, in the anniversary of independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan, on the gruelling Lake Sairan off-road track, which includes ups and downs, water obstacles, sharp turns and high-speed sections.
The 2018 edition of the Maslov Cup was overshadowed by the death of one of the competitors. Kazakhstan off-road racer Azamat Abdugali, 38, died from heart attack during the final race of the first day of racing.
It happened on Sunday, 16 December 2018. Azamat Abdugali who raced a specially prepared racing UAZ entered in the Sport-1 category, suddenly stopped the car along a straight, only seven minutes before the end of the race. Despite the immediate intervention of a mediacal crew, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
When the news of Abdugali's death arrived to the organizers, the meeting was suspended and all the ceremonies of the opening day of races were canceled. Competitions restarted only the next day. The first reports stated that the cause of death was pulmonary thrombo-embolism, but a post-mortem autopsy showed that Azamat Abdugali suffered a heart attack.
A prize winner and participant in regional off-road competitions since many years, Azamat Abdugali lived in Taldykorgan in Almaty Region, Kazakhstan, and was buried there.
