Sometimes, getting to the starting line is half the battle. Getting to the first day on the job. Getting to line up as a competitor. Getting in the game.
The Dakar Rally is the longest off road race in the world. It started in 1977 when Thierry Sabine got lost in the Libyan desert while riding his motorbike in the Abidjan-Nice Rally. After being rescued from the desert, Sabine retunred home facinated by the sand dunes that had trapped him. The Frenchman needed to share his discovery with as many people as possible. Back hime he drew up plans for a brand new rally; starting in Paris, travelling to Africa via the Mediterranean Sea, crossing the scorching Sahara Desert, and finishing on the shores of the magical Lac Rose on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal’s capital city.
Sabine came up with a motto for the rally – “A challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind.”
From 1979 to 2007 the Dakar travelled throughout Europe and Africa. Brave competitors came from all corners of the world to test themselves against “the toughest race on the planet”. Legends were made as an ever-changing route took the rally all over Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, France, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Miger, Protugal, Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, and Tunisia.
In 2009, they moved the race to South America – Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay. Half a million fans greeted the arrival of the Rally with a street party in Buenos Aires.
In 2020, an entirely new landscape of desert playgrounds was unlocked as Saudi Arabia became the 30th country to host the Dakar.
“How do I enter?” I asked my friend Jamie Campbell who I had a shop that built my Baja race car. Jamie was selected by team Honda to drive an experimental hydrogen car in the race last year.
“Well, you can’t just enter the Dakar. You have to qualify” he said.
“How do I do that?”
“You have to race a shorter Rally. Like the Abu Dhabi race or the five-day Morocco Rally.”
This was going to be a bigger deal than I thought.
Do you give up when you hear that a goal or project will be far more involved than you imagined?
“How do I do that?” I asked…..
Never, never give up. The proper response to any challenge is, “How can I….”