2020 DAKAR RALLY WINNER RICKY BRABEC
P52
Interview
Yet for Brabec, it's just another race,
and he's already back at it, having
claimed a recent win in the Sonora Ral-
ly. We caught up with Brabec, who has
reluctantly been spending more time
with media than on his bike in the past
several weeks, to hear about his mo-
mentous victory, the work that went into
achieving it, and how much Americans
really understand about rally racing.
How does it feel to be the first
American to win the overall at
the Dakar Rally?
It feels good to be the first American.
People are asking me, "you still on
cloud nine?" I'm like, "nah, not really."
The day [that I won] was good, but from
my point of view there's always more
to accomplish and obviously there's
another year to do this again. So,
the focus is just to keep going. Obvi-
ously, it feels really good to be the first
American, make some history, do it on
a Honda, but we got to keep the train
going. It was nice, it still is nice, but
now the target is on my back. You have
to really be smart.
Speaking of being smart, tell
us about your strategy going
into the race.
Some people have strategies but me
and Johnny [Campbell], he's my men-
tor, we didn't really have a strategy. Just
to get through every day. Get to the
finish every day. It's really hard to have a
strategy because you don't know what's
going to happen the next day. It's cool
to have an idea of a strategy, but we
didn't have an idea of a strategy until
maybe three days from the end. Three
days from the end is obviously critical,
it's getting close so you want to maintain
it. Every day I was just holding myself
together and just trying to not lose a lot
of time and also trying not to win.
Trying not to win the stage,
because then you have to open
the track the next day and you
become vulnerable at that point.
Exactly.
(Left) "Now that
we won, we know
what it takes. We're
going to do our
best to go back and
do it again," says
Brabec. (Right)
Brabec makes
his way through
the Saudi Arabian
backcountry on
stage five.
