And the 2021 Dakar Rally has started!
Just over 100 motorcycle competitors began the short Prologue (Stage 0), consisting of 120km of liaison and 11km of special stage, around 10am local Saudi time today.
Four Australians are competing in the 2021 Dakar rally – KTM factory rider Toby Price (#3) with his teammate Daniel Sanders (#21), Albury based rider Andrew Houlihan (#62) and Michael Burgess from Bendigo.
Andrew Houlihan is once again competing for the Coca-Cola Nomadas Adventure team alongside long-term teammate Pablo Guillen.
Apart from Toby Price, who won the event in 2016 and 2019, all the other Australians are rookies in the Dakar. Pablo Guillen is also attempting Dakar for the first time.
Here’s where you can stay up to date during the event:
- We will be running daily reports on the Motorcycle Life website (motorcyclelife.com.au) and Facebook page.
- Road to Dakar 2021 website (roadtodakar.com.au) and Facebook page – daily updates on the Coca-Cola Nomadas Adventure team of Andrew Houlihan and Pablo Guillen.
- Speedcafe (speedcafe.com) – daily updates with a daily diary from Andrew Houlihan.
- The official Dakar website (dakar.com)
- For Australian followers SBS TV will run a 30 minute highlights program daily at 5:30 pm local time (check your local TV Guide)
- For followers in other countries, there are around 190 TV networks providing coverage of this year’s event, please check your local guides.
The 2021 Dakar Rally will take competitors through 4,800 km of special stages over 12 stages, all on tracks never seen in last year’s event.
This year also sees the return of some of the classic vehicles that forged the Dakar legend in a special parallel event – The Dakar Classic.
