When it comes to automotive events, it’s rare that I’m unsure of what to expect. World-class concours, 24-hour endurance races, local cars and coffee gatherings, cruise-ins, weekend drags – been there, loved them. But then, an invite to spectate at the Dakar Rally filled me with equal parts excitement and apprehension. Outside of hours of gauzy, nostalgia-drenched clips from vintage editions of the Paris-Dakar Rally, I had essentially zero frame of reference for the modern rally raid.
Despite participation and course difficulty only growing in the decades since its inception, public interest – or maybe that’s public awareness – in the modern Dakar seemed to dissipate somewhere in the early 2000s. When’s the last time you or anyone you know discussed the Dakar in casual conversation?
Meanwhile, the first 15 or so years of the rally are a gold mine for the nostalgic enthusiast. The short-form social media content mill loves vintage Dakar footage, drenching feeds with sandy pornography of Jan de Rooy’s legendary overtake of Ari Vatanen’s little Peugeot in his 1200bhp twin-engined DAF monster truck. Other standards include any footage of the dominant Mitsubishi Pajero and Jacky Ickx’s race-winning 1983 “Texaco” Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen.
Perceptions of today’s event may be changing, however. Ford’s big-buck, four-car effort at this year’s race was highly publicised, as were the last few years of Audi’s similarly intensive programme. The release of the extremely popular limited-edition Porsche 911 Dakar no doubt went a long way in boosting the event’s Google traffic. Elsewhere, Swiss watch brand Tudor became the race’s official timekeeper and partner for 2025 and beyond, joining its other title sponsorships in Formula 1, top-level pro cycling, and America’s Cup.
We might be primed for a widespread Dakar revival, but is this (potential) sea-change landing due to a softer, more accessible Dakar? How does it even fit in the modern motorsport scene? I’m certainly not the only person who finds the concept of the event challenging. The Dakar Rally – often known simply as as The Dakar – still remains esoteric and impenetrable for competitors and fans alike nearly 50 years after the first running. Known initially as the Paris-Dakar Rally, the maiden raid of 1979 was inspired by founder Thierry Sabine’s experience while lost in the Ténéré region of the Sahara. Just 74 of the original 182 competitors made it to the Senegalese capital, all pulled from a motley fleet of cars, trucks, and bikes that three weeks prior had gleamed dully in the shadow of Paris’ Eiffel Tower.
For the 1980 event, 216 people signed up. This ballooned to 291 in 1981 and then 382 the following year. Early factory efforts were spare, but automakers quickly developed parallel competition programmes in the wake of the World Rally Championship’s spike in popularity. The inevitable demise of the FIA’s over-clocked Group B category in the early 1980s saw orphaned WRC weaponry like the Porsche 959 and Peugeot 205 T16 sling Saharan sand at the hands of those immortals like Ickx and Vatanen.
Part of our contemporary infatuation with the Dakar of yore concerns the heroics. The old war stories from these glory days are woven from waxed canvas and Kevlar fibre, with the most fantastical among them now firmly embossed in motorsport history. Thierry de Montcorgé’s Dakarized 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche has captivated every generation of enthusiasts since the first mud splattered against the Mulliner bodywork. Privateer efforts run from the highly competitive to the highly absurd, with four(!) Vespas fielded in the 1980 edition alone.
Terribly evocative stuff, that. But even the most ardent of fans would struggle to catch a single stage of the race. Since its inception, the Dakar Rally has been one of the most logistically inaccessible motorsports events on the planet. Other than some credentialling needed for the main bivouac base camps that pop up at preordained places along the 7700-kilometer route, anyone can motor on up to the main race route and get as close as they dare. There are no expensive tickets or manmade barriers to keep you from seeing the race.
Talking to competitors and race organisers at this year’s event, which ran through Saudi Arabia 3–17 January, it quickly became apparent that the Dakar is as much a race of logistic management and orienteering as it is of grit, perseverance, and driving skill. The participants are given start and finish points and a 10,000-foot conceptual view of the total race course, with specific stage directions kept secret until the literal last minute(s). Drivers and co-drivers are given 15 minutes prior to the stage start to review the supplied road book.
After that, it’s up to the co-driver to interpolate and direct the driver to the correct GPS waypoints, which are only directly viewable by officials in race HQ, who follow all racers along the course in a hot, cramped, on-site command room. Effectively, this means that fans and wannabe spectators have no clear idea of where the actual race route will be and instead must rely on the hotspots that emerge through the stage, especially those more easily accessed close to the start and finish, and when the cars inevitably cross a paved road.
This is all assuming your travel to and visa application for Saudi Arabia went off without a hitch, of course. Race organisers refer to the Dakar as having lived through three chapters, with the original Paris-Dakar and subsequent Africa-based race being the first and its reluctant move to South America in the late 2000s due to security concerns being its second. The rich biomes and fractured deserts stretching through countries like Argentina and Peru weren’t unlike the variance found in the original race, but the third and current Dakar chapter has bound racers to the Arabian Peninsula since 2020.
Even if you do get some sort of insider heads-up as to the route, you’ll need to undertake a mini rally-raid of your own to get to a vantage point. I was graciously hosted by Tudor watches as part of a small media dispatch for the new partnership, and despite having embedded Dakar officials as part of our crew, plus a small fleet of brand-new Land Rover Defenders, the going was tough.
A series of excruciating travel delays, along with the time change, meant I arrived in the city of AlUla three days after I left the States, and I awoke after just a few hours of sleep to embark on our first Dakar viewing excursion. Forty minutes of pavement abruptly turned sandy when our driver took a right turn into what was by all accounts the middle of nowhere, relying on a custom, pre-set route in the Gaia GPS app to manoeuvre through a desert expanse devoid of the usual tapestry of fire roads and primitive trails so familiar in the Mojave.
The Defender proved requisitely capable and remarkably comfortable over whoops and rocks, though LR’s strange decision to shod these loaners in standard street tyres was an oversight, and it led to us getting stuck right before our planned rendezvous with our temporary Dakar viewing base camp.
A rough-cut trough of tyre channels was the only indicator we were in the right place. As with most deserts, our little corner of the Arabian Desert was empty and quiet. Wind gently cut between the rocky wadi, and the rich crystalline sand bloomed and drifted in the breeze. Our voices were the only sound aside from the surprisingly delicate tinkling noise our boots made on the shale. After a few minutes of camera calibration and idle chatter – “Bike! Bike!”
A standing rider came slithering into focus, the raucous clatter of his four-stroke 450cc heart shattering the muffled silence. I was surprised – a competitive Dakar motorcycle is, at first glance, rather unremarkable in the context of what it’s capable of and what it must endure, appearing very much like what you’d see at Baja and even on your local powersports show floor.
A few bikes later, I grew concerned we were distracting the racers. We were situated at a corner, with at least 50 feet between our camp and the race route, but the riders approached the sweeping right-hander with what appeared to be apprehension, slowing down and taking scope of us and the landscape before powering into the valley stretching ahead.
I relayed this naïve observation to one of the race officials accompanying us. As it turns out, the competitors were at least partially relieved to see us, as they were flying through the desert via pace notes and interpretation, and they slowed for the corner only because they quite literally were unsure of what lay ahead. Along this route, racers must hit a series of GPS checkpoints or must double back and hit them before continuing. As if to punctuate that point, two bikers paused at the base of the curve before us, frustratingly gesticulating at one another. They both missed the checkpoint, and some frantic manoeuvring was required before they completed the GPS check-in, shook their helmets at each other, and then buzzed off into the empty expanse, hopefully with better luck.
Silence once again blanketed the desert, until an echoing cry of “Car!” killed all idle conversation. A rapidly approaching cloud of roiling dust gave way to a Ford Raptor T1+, an insectoid and very imposing desert prototype that only resembles its namesake truck in the vaguest sense. The V8 soundtrack was unmistakable and unbelievably evocative, a high-rpm shriek reverberating through chests and ricocheting off broken shale.
We were thrilled, but then we were downright starstruck when the first truck lumbered by – a 9100kg, 1200bhp flying brick standing 12 feet tall, it appeared very much like a military vehicle left overnight in a NASCAR sponsor convention. These behemoths don’t race through the desert so much as they subjugate it, pushing through sand and stone with the surety of a freight train. In person, it was like watching someone drift an office building, and as such, the wake was remarkable, the mix of sharp dust and sooty exhaust enveloping us bystanders like a horror movie, with aural overtones of your local truck stop.
We packed up with the light fading fast, retracing our way through the darkening desert with alarming difficulty. We soon lost sight of our trailing companion car, daring only to stop and wait when we were beyond the silken, sandy sections that would mire us for the night. Finally, tarmac – and then, the accommodations of the bivouac.
Tudor’s auspicious new position means we’re the only non-racers and officials in the camp. What we witnessed earlier that day was a portion of the so-called marathon stage, where competitors are unable to accept mechanical assistance out on the route, and all repairs are to be performed solely by the drivers themselves in the camp area. And so we arrived to a tense, exhausted environment; temperatures hovered in the 40s Fahrenheit, with most personnel huddling around large firepits burning in the centre of the open grounds.
Also unique to these marathon stages are the sleeping arrangements. As we discovered at the rest-day bivy, staffers are accustomed to individual tents, pop-up campers, expansive trailers, and sometimes catered dinners. During this stage, everyone sleeps in a communal Bedouin-style tent.
We ate dinner with the drivers, cross-legged on the intricately patterned Arabic carpet. Accompanying us for this meal was Gaspard Baudry, an official from the rally’s parent and overseeing Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), who described himself as one of the officials in charge of developing the actual race route. After giving us a compressed explanation of how the route is developed – a whole lotta Google Earth involved! – I pestered Baudry with some of my Dakar theories.
I asked if there had been any notable spike in fan engagement or following due to the pervasive Dakar nostalgia on social media. Apparently not – outside interest in the Dakar has been stable, but all of the challenges involved with live viewership mean the Dakar is more of an event geared primarily for the participants rather than a fan base – which is not necessarily something you can say regarding other top-tier motorsports events.
I pressed him on growth. “Participant interest has never faltered, and has remained consistent,” he said, with apparently no year on record where the overall entries dipped. That doesn’t mean some classes are less popular than others; quads, for example, were discontinued for this year’s event due to declining popularity.
I’m left with the sense that much like its trans-continental progenitor, the modern Dakar is wholly confident in both future success and its positioning in the motor-competition landscape. The same cannot be said for the relatively new inclusion of Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) oversight, something voiced to us by a handful of participants.
Formed back in 2021, the FIA-ASO partnership allows for the Dakar’s inclusion in the newly formed World Rally-Raid Championship, a series governed by the FIA and promoted by the ASO, at least for five years. This greatly expands the Dakar’s place on the motorsports calendar, but also brings with it a host of changes to ensure that the safety and structure of the previously independent Dakar is up to FIA snuff. Naturally, the FIA immediately set about incorporating new safety requirements, penalties, and other logistical revisions that, to some, have diluted what was once considered the most dangerous and rough-edged major off-road race on the planet.
How accurate that is, I can’t be sure; there have been two fatalities since the FIA got involved, and that’s roughly the same tragic cadence of fatal incidents as there were before the merger. The Dakar remains, by all accounts, a dangerous race; the cars are far, far faster and more capable than they were 46 years ago – heck, even 20 years ago – rendering the idea of a rudimentary point-to-point sprint irrelevant. The inconvenient truth is that other than ensuring enough mechanical support, the modern Dakar racer wouldn’t find the route of the original Paris-Dakar to be all that much of a challenge.
So, the ASO’s secret orienteering-by-notes route exists to slow the cars down while challenging the driver and co-driver. Which, ultimately, is why everyone’s here in the first place. A high-ranking ASO official gave us a rolling tour of the rest-day bivy outside of Ha’il, a sprawling base camp buzzing with activity. All race vehicles that survived up until this point were either in a state of disassembly at the hands of a full race crew, or they sat in preternatural silence as their handlers caught up on some much-needed rest.
On our tour, we crossed paths briefly with race director David Castera. “Drivers are saying this is one of the most challenging Dakars in recent years,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s been a lot of questions!” I asked if participants found this preferable to an easier, faster event. “Oh, absolutely,” he said. “They love it.”
Eventually, we ended up in the Dacia tent. This was a full factory effort by the Franco-Romanian automaker with its new Sandrider Dakar prototype, piloted by a triumvirate of heavy, heavy hitters: nine-time WRC world champion and multi-disciplinary motorsports force Sebastian Loeb; Dakar veteran and class winner Cristina Gutierrez; and Dakar legend Nasser Al-Attiyah, looking to add a sixth overall win to his trophy cabinet. His calm and seemingly well-rested demeanour was in sharp contrast to the Dacia team’s frenzied work in the tent, swapping wheels, parts, fluids, and body panels on Al-Attiyah’s pseudo-cyberpunk Sandrider.
At this point in the race, he was hopeful but frustrated. Loeb was disqualified from the race after a tumble bent a portion of his roll cage – the same technicality that removed rally legend and Ford driver Carlos Sainz Sr. from the event after the Spaniard flipped his Raptor T1+ during the second stage. At this point, some navigational errors and tyre trouble meant Al-Attiyah was just hoping for a spot on the podium, but he had some choice, off-the-record words about the FIA’s involvement. He later wrote a letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem over frustrations surrounding penalties and disqualifications.
Hey, modern racing has rules. Even competitors driving the best of yesteryear’s machinery under the fantastic Dakar Classic are subject to regulation, though many of the Classic competitors seemed more at ease than their main-race counterparts. But that was always going to be the case; the stakes of the Classic are far, far lower, with the proportion of (comparably) low- and medium-budget privateers much higher than those of the main race, even when compared to the relatively affordable motorcycle and UTV classes.
The Classic region of the bivy is one big toybox for us nerds. Effortlessly cool rigs like a Dakar-ized Series I Range Rover are contrasted by eccentrica like a Peugeot 205, an Isuzu VehiCROSS, and a lifted, safari-style Porsche 924. Compared to the extraterrestrial appearance of the main Dakar field, these old warhorses present as nothing more than strategically race-prepped production cars. And, the collective energy is exactly what I’ve experienced in the pits of Monterey Motorsports Reunion or Goodwood Revival, with laughs, swapped tall tales, and more than a few folks slumped in a camp chair with a hat over their eyes. I soon gravitated toward a row of formerly dominant Mitsubishis, now maintained by what appears to be a big group of friends. I approached as the trucks were getting what appeared to be routine checks and fluid swaps.
One driver noticed me taking a photo of the storage area of his Pajero, so he opened the door wider and explained what some of the fixtures and hardware were used for. I asked him about Dakar Classic, and what some of the primary differences were between the experiences. “In Classic, the co-driver is the most important. It’s 20 per cent driver, 80 per cent co-driver. The opposite is the case in the main race. The new cars? Speed, speed, speed.”
Makes sense. Classic follows the same cadence of starts, finishes, and bivouacs, but the route and execution are different. Classic competitors are held to an average speed and time per stage, meaning consistency is king. For some cars, this speed is easy. For others, not so simple – a holistically crunched third-gen Pajero sitting at the end of the Mitsu section was a somber reminder that all racing is dangerous, no matter the speed.
One 20-hour travel day later, I was back in the States, with sand falling out of my ears and Dakar merch splitting the zipper of my duffel. In the week since, I’ve spent precious little time thinking about anything else but the desert, and how the realities of today’s Dakar contrast with the rose-tinted race goggles of the past. What motorsports series hasn’t seen radical evolution over the past half-century? F1 is so far removed from its origins that it’s hardly recognisable at all. Le Mans? The track isn’t even the same, and the danger isn’t on the same scale.
Dakar is still dangerous. It’s still challenging, adventurous, and, for many, inaccessible. Above all, it needs you less than you need it – and that’s part of the magic.
