The Dakar Rally - Part 2

Stories from The Real Stories of the Dakar

Photo by Scot Harden - 2005

I’m happy to see some of the American competitors I help like Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch sitting first overall in their class at the moment. In the motorcycle class, Ricky Brabec is sitting 2nd overall, just one minute out of the lead. But anything can happen, so hopefully they can keep the momentum going.

Is it the Danger or Adventure?

As the Dakar rally gets into full swing this week, many ask why do they do it? The Dakar rally has been called inhumane, unnecessary, and even outright irresponsible. To some it may appear this way. It comes down to the freedom of choice. Even in the bible, we are told to live out our adventures, our truths. This is the reason we live in a free society today. We go on our adventures voluntarily, dreaming for something bigger than ourselves. We are often asked the question, what is our motivation for riding and racing? After all, the sport is dangerous and people do actually lose their lives. For this answer, Rick Johnson, in the movie, Dust to Glory, provides a very vivid answer.

“Racers do not race because they have a death wish. It is not because we are crazy, rather it is about competition. Being a fighter, we do not fight to hurt people or ourselves, we fight to only to win. Racers do not race because they want to be injured, they want to go fast and be free; this is the euphoria off-road racers. That is the way we manipulate life, through the mechanics of a machine. Off-road racing is a bit like chasing rainbows, endangering oneself for glory. People ask me, would I just quit racing if something bad happened? Why quit something, you cannot stop life because something bad happens to you? People do not stop flying because of 9-11.”

Attempting to explain why we yearn to explore the ends of the earth on a motorcycle or car; anyone who rides a motorcycle can attest to the reasons we explore life on two wheels. For many, riding a motorcycle is to, as Joseph Campbell said, “follow your bliss,” thus the reason many of us desire to explore new trails, experience the freedom and share our stories; that quote is one reason for writing this book, and helps explain why we would take part in adventure riding. Motorcycle riding involves risk and sometimes what the world may see as irrational decision making. Most adventure riders yearn for more in life, and they attempt to find it through riding a motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle or car off-road gives a person a freedom not duplicated elsewhere. Whatever the reason, we hope to provide a road map from those who have gone before us and tell the stories of the Dakar as they truly happened.

Catastrophe itself may be the catalyst for rediscovering that sustainable meaning across the circumstances you find yourself in. If you don’t have sustainable meaning in your life, especially when you are lost in the desert, you are shipwrecked, literally. You don’t have to think except when you are failing. The purpose of thinking is to calculate the new trajectory. This type of thinking, while participating in structured play, is what changes the person forever.

People often argue about the qualities that makes us uniquely human. Some will say it is out ability to process language or math, or our ability to cooperate with one another. Even simpler, humans are storytellers. We are all enthralled by stories as this is what makes us uniquely human. Most stories come about from some type of adventure, another quality essential to being human.

Adventure is a form of play. From the moment we are born, we play, we go out on adventures, and make up stories. For a newborn, simply turning their head from one side to another constitutes an adventure in their own capacity. No form of adventure ever exists without some danger. It is going out into the unknown.

We are trying to discover our own truths. This is the human spirit. Everyone one of us has this spirit to tell stories about our adventures and how they played out. Those of us who can tell our adventures in a form of play are better storytellers. We all grow up, but we never lose the ability for play and adventure. This is what the Dakar represents. For many, the preparation, competition, and sense of adventure is what we all seek. Though we all don’t venture out into the desert for two or three weeks and live in encampments called bivouacs, but we sure like to watch others do it or read their stories. This is why the Dakar captures the minds of millions who watch the event each year.

That’s what the human adventure called the Dakar rally and the multitudes of stories it creates every year. There are many adventures out there, such as climbing mount Everest, where at the peak there exists insufficient oxygen for survival. The Dakar rally is akin to Everest for adventure riding. Each year since 1979, some hundreds of adventurers gather and agree to play, live together, tell stories, and discover their human spirits. Most never finish, and some will never return. But these stories will be told, as we live through each and every one of them, each day of our lives. Without these stories, not only would we not be human, we would not be alive.

The truth is a funny thing. Most of us are taught to tell the truth because its what you have to do. There is so much more to it. The truth is our path to adventure. Without it, there is no future, or a path to adventure. It requires us lay our cards on the table, and leave our comfortable surroundings to venture out into foreign lands and cultures. Nature has been described as a pathway to a more divine sense of being; if you follow the footsteps nature has led out, it will lead to a better understanding this divine sense. Following your senses on a motorcycle, respecting nature and all that you appreciate from adventure riding is what makes adventure riding a unique experience. Adventure racing allows one to cover vast terrain, sharing the experience with fellow enthusiasts, forever changing the human spirit. After an adventure ride, or rally, the person and their outlook on life changes forever. Adventurers yearn for different experiences. The chance to be in nature and reflect on oneself and the world around them are reasons for choosing adventure riding.

Sports are a great analogy for life because life is play at its most fundamental level. In every sporting endeavor, we establish an aim and then arrange our perceptions and actions to pursue the goal. We all spontaneously admire sports figures because they play out life’s drama of attaining psychological and physical perfection in pursuing the goal. We use these figures as models because their approach to overcoming hardships can be transcribed into something applicable. We admire the broader framework of discipline in pursuit of victory. In the case of the Dakar Rally, true victory is reaching the end.

Jacky Ickx, the legendary formula 1 champion, explains with passion why the Dakar rally is a race like none other: “The Dakar rally is a true cure for those in search of youth. To win the rally, one must possess the fundamental desire to succeed, because the race brings out the person, and upon by the end, that person is changed forever. The system we live in forces us to exist in an artificial world. The Dakar rally offers in the modern world, a perspective of life, one time per year, for the competitor to return to his or her sources. It forces one to deal with nature, the desert, and forces one to look at the face of the human race.”