Dakar is go!!!
Can the Brits do the business in the desert?
The Dakar Rally enters a new chapter in 2020 with the race moving from South America to Saudi Arabia. But while the race promises to be different in terms of terrain, temperature and culture, one thing that hasn’t changed is the intense competition to be crowned the ultimate off-road rider.
The 2020 grid is a heady mix of previous winners and proven contenders with at least 10 riders with the credentials to win. Gone are the days when experience ruled, now that’s just one of the ingredients necessary, with insane speed and unwavering determination also crucial for any rider wanting glory.
It’s now a given only a small percentage of the top riders will finish and, if recent history is anything to go by, the reason for not getting to the end will be injury as the fastest Rally riders in the world take big risks day-inday-out meaning heavy crashes become inevitable. Britain’s hopes lie with 30-year-old Sam Sunderland. The KTM factory rider is at the top of his game having been crowned FIM Rally World Champion 2019. He’s also the only British rider to win the Dakar, when he claimed a dominant victory in 2017. Sunderland has spent a big part of his career living in Dubai and is widely regarded as one of the fastest riders of all when it comes to sand and big dunes.
He told MCN: “I’ve got one Dakar in the pocket, one world championship in the pocket and that feels good. I want to win another Dakar, but to win Dakar everything has to be perfect, the build-up, training, bike, mechanics and team.” While the race moving to Saudi Arabia remains controversial, from a purely sporting perspective Sunderland has no doubts about the potential of the terrain and also the big challenges ahead. “I think the original spirit of the Dakar was more about the adventure side and I have seen a couple of images of Saudi and thought ‘Wow! I didn’t know they had that there’. Mountains and lakes and forests and all these terrains that I didn’t know they had. It’ll be a cool experience and a bit of a clean slate for everyone. I’ve maybe got two days in the second week that I’ll be able to reference with riding in Dubai, but for the most part I haven’t got a bloody clue! I think everyone’s going to be shocked at the variety. Everyone’s in the same boat, everyone’s going to have to deal with it. It’ll be a level playing field in some ways.”