-
Posts
-
Since the very beginning, the Dakar Rally has always been a bit of an all-stars event in a way. Riders and drivers of all walks of motorsports have tried their best. MXGP guys, World Enduro guys, WRC guys, F1 guys, sportscar endurance guys, FMX guys… Outside of NHRA guys, I don’t think there’s a single major motorsports discipline with no representation since 1979. Let’s talk about most of the 2023 batch:
· Women’s trials, endurocross and such = Sandra Gómez (AMA Endurocross champion and highest-placing women in Red Bull Romaniacs history) will fight the veteran Mirjam Pol to be the #1 woman on 2 wheels.
· FMX = Libor Podmol (FMX World Champion plus X-Games gold medalist) has gone from doing double backflips to enjoying the desert to the point of competing in the “Originals” subclass, where he’ll have to be his own mechanic for all 2 weeks with no outside support and a very limited amount of spares.
· Road racing = James Hillier (Isle of Man TT race winner) is a rookie that has decided to dive head-first into the self-supported “Originals” class. Oddly enough, the Isle of Man TT does prepare you for long races (each 6-lap race is over 225 miles) and is all about handling bumps at ridiculous speeds.
· NHHA = Jacob Argubright (top10 NHHA pro rider) is trying to follow in the steps of riders like Ricky Brabec, Johnny Campbell and Skyler Howes on his rookie participation.
· North American desert racing = Ricky Brabec and Skyler Howes will have a great chance at giving the fans something to cheer for. The younger Mason Klein also promises to deliver rather good results.
· Beach racing = Adrien van Beveren (3x Le Touquet winner and 2x French Sand Racing champion) is one of the main favorites while Camille Chapeliere (French Sand Racing race winner) is still trying to make his way to a factory seat.
· MXGP = Rui Gonçalves and Joaquim Rodrigues are part of the Portuguese batch influenced by the Portugal-Dakar editions of the mid 2000s while Matthias Walkner went from being an underwhelming Austrian rider languishing in MX3 to being KTM and Red Bull’s big local star.
· Enduro World Championship = Lorenzo Santolino (EWC race winner) and Daniel Sanders (ISDE overall winner) are both highly-valued factory riders due to their raw speed.
On other classes there are many more notable ex-motorbike riders like Stephane Peterhansel (Enduro World champion, 6x Dakar Rally bike winner), Nani Roma (Dakar Rally bike winner), Isidre Esteve (Dakar Rally top5 on bike, now paralyzed), Laia Sanz (greatest woman on 2 wheels, once held the Trials, Enduro and Endurocross World titles at the same time), Andrew Short (AMA Supercross winner), Carlos Checa (MotoGp race winner), Christian Lavieille (Superbike Endurance World champion), Antoine Meo (Enduro World champion), ISDE E1 class winner Helder Rodrigues and several Enduro World Championship race winners.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
