VOLUME 57 ISSUE 13 MARCH 31, 2020 P55
look good when the guy who just
won the Dakar Rally gets 11th
place [on a stage]. It's just differ-
ent. It's all time-based. The top-
10 guys start three minutes apart.
So, basically, if you start first and
the 10th guy catches you, you
just lost 30 minutes. You want
to be the guy that makes up the
time and not lose it.
It's a chess game, not a sprint.
Exactly.
For you, what was the most
difficult thing about the Dakar
Rally?
Sleep. We probably averaged
about four hours a night. You
have people parked next to you
working on their trucks all night,
people on the side-by-sides
tuning them all night, you're
not getting your seven hours of
sleep. By the end of the rally you
are wrecked! "Oh my, gosh, one
more day! I can do it."
How did you deal with that?
Ear plugs. The only thing I
wanted to do was to finish the
rally and sleep without ear plugs.
After returning home to this
media whirlwind and giving
interviews, do you feel that
American fans understand
rally?
You know, I was talking to
Andy McMillin, Baja trophy truck
guy. Uh, no. A lot of fans don't
understand rally. But I think
they're trying to. People don't
understand why we wake up at
three in the morning. It's like,
we got to ride on the freeway to
Vegas and then race. We can't
put our bikes on a vehicle and
sleep. It's definitely a different
style racing. It's not high inten-
sity. It's a long duration, and it's
a relaxed duration, basically. Out
here you go to a National Hare
and Hound, you go to a National
Enduro, you go to a supercross
or endurocross, the intensity
level of endurocross and super-
cross is insane! They're at their
(Left) Brabec's
win marked a
return to the
top of the Dakar
podium for
Honda—a long
awaited goal
for Big Red.
(Right) Kendall
Norman prepares
Brabec's CRF450
Rally for another
day of Dakar.
THE BIKE ONLY
FELL OVER TWO
TIMES AND IT
WAS IN THE
SAND DUNES
BOTH TIMES, SO
LITERALLY MY
BIKE HAD NO
SCRATCHES ON
IT. IT WAS PRETTY
AMAZING.
