FEATURE:
2016 DAKAR RALLY

TOBY PRICE MAKES HISTORY AND ELEVATES

HIS STATUS INTO THE LEGENDARY CATEGORY

STORY BY ASHENHURST PICS BY RED BULL/KTM

DAKAR

DREAMING

W

ay back in 1977,

two very different

major sporting

events happened:

the Centenary test

between Australia and England

(Australia won), and the Abidjan-

Nice Rally. What rally, you ask?

Fair enough — it wasn’t really that

rally that was the major event, but it

was the fact that French competitor

Thierry Sabine got lost while

competing in it. So amazed was he by

the landscape he discovered while

wandering aimlessly that he went

home and devised a route that would

become the Paris-Dakar — and thus

the greatest off-road race in the world

was born. If we made a race every

time we got lost there’d be non-stop

racing every day of the week.

THOSE THAT

CAME BEFORE

Australia has had some great showings

at Dakar in the past. Andy Haydon and

Andy Caldecott most famously blazed

the trail that Toby Price fi rst took in

2015; Haydon became the fi rst Aussie

to win a stage and the fi rst to podium

in 1998 (such an amazing feat), and

in 2005 Caldecott was on fi re against

some huge names when a 17-minute

penalty put that epic pack out of reach.

Tragically, Caldecott would be the 23rd

fatality of the rally when he was killed

competing in 2006.

And thus begins the unlikely story of

Toby Price, a rider without a team until

MSC Kawasaki threw him a lifeline in

off-roads instead of motocross and he

repaid them by winning the 2009 AORC

title at his fi rst attempt and against the

great Stefan Merriman. More and more

titles followed and he followed his then

team mate Ben Grabham to the desert,

where Grabbo had a hold on Finke

with some epic wins. Toby won Finke

on his fi rst attempt and it was clear

that desert racing sparked something

in him.

Then, of course, there was the

crash that could have killed him,

should have paralysed him but in the

end put him out of racing for about a

year, and when he returned it went to

the back of his mind as he went about

winning everything again. And we mean

everything. Price is one of the rare

breed that can win in the desert one

weekend and then get on a two-stroke

and win in the trees the next. No doubt

he could podium in the motocross as

well should the chance arise.