Rally du Maroc
Anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong just getting to the start of the race in Morocco.
The original plan was race under the flag of The Gear Shop team, expanding the Bronco Raptor program to include motorcycles. My new KTM 450 Rally was meant to arrive in Agadir on The Gear Shop support truck, ride 2 days of shakedown to acquaint myself with the bike offroad seeing as I had never ridden it offroad never mind not ridden a motorcycle for over a year since relocating from Canada to France. Iron out the kinks and then go racing.
That plan went massively sideways when everything the team shipped from Canada got held up in customs in Barcelona and the race car was still in Antwerp.
This set off a chain reaction of scrambling with Nathan, Bronco Raptor driver and team principle taking off to drive the race car back to Barcelona while I flew in to try to extricate their shipment out of customs. 2 days later we all back together in Barcelona, but there was no movement on getting the shipment cleared and out of customs. This left the team considering if they were going to make it to the race, and if they didn’t make it to the race, nor would I. Miraculously, a friend found me a last minute ride for my motorcycle in a truck leaving from the other side of Barcelona in an hour, which I hustled to catch. At least now my race was moving forward.
Low and behold, the truck carrying my moto was unable to get on the ferry from Spain to Morocco because the ramp was too steep for the trailer. As I sat in Marrakech waiting, I was powerless to help. Thankfully the truck was able to scrape it’s way onto a ferry a few sailing later, but I was now arriving another day later, after already missing shakedown and the chance to test and setup the bike.
8 hours of immigration and customs holdups for the driver on the other side and now I was another day delayed and at risk of missing my scrutineering and technical checks to be passed fit to race. Thankfully the race organizers allowed me to check in a day late so long as I could get myself, my gear and my bike from Marrakech to Agadir.
With the help of Chalid driving a small truck, the type usually reserved for moving camels, I managed to finally make it to Agadir. I felt like I had already run a rally up to the this point.
With no experience with FIM systems and protocols, I now needed to instal the ERTF Roadbook and Marlink Iritrak systems which I had not idea about. Thankfully my friend Inigo Zadoya who has raced the Dakar and his friends jumped into action and prepped my bike. What took them 2 hours would have taken me a day without help. By dinner time, it looked like I might actually make it to the start line.
The next day I passed administration and was cleared to ride which felt like a victory in itself. Now I just needed to focus on riding and racing.
The Prologue was a 16km sprint and with a plan to just get through it cleanly, I was begging for the finish by kilometre 2 after missing a waypoint and getting to grips with riding again and holding onto a properly tuned race machine in the form of a KTM 450 Rally. I ultimately finished 10th last out of 131 motorcycles which put a serious dent in my confidence with the race really starting the following day.
My goal for the race was to finish so as to get the points to qualify for the Dakar Rally. Ultimately, however, I wanted to finish in a position that gave me belief that I could race the Dakar in a style that kept me largely in front of the Ultimate cars coming from behind and finishing the Special Stages in daylight. I wanted to prove to myself I could stay in front of the snowball effect that compounds each day if you aren’t fast enough.
Compared to the Prologue, Stage 1 allowed me to get into a rhythm and flow over 272kms. I managed to pass maybe 25 people on track and as many again on time to move up 52 places to 79th. It was the confidence boost I needed, however, I rubbed a deep, fleshy hole in my left hand when I got sand in my glove in the dunes. It was something that I would now have to manage, and my body could feel the fact I hadn’t ridden in over a year.
Stage 2 began well before crashing in a 30km/h speed zone trying to reach my drink tube and spraining my wrist. I keep moving and as the stage wore on, felt the fatigue from the previous day. Convinced I had gone backwards in the standings, I was pleasantly surprised to move up another 7 places to 72nd.
Thankfully I was able to manage the discomfort in my wrist for Stage 3 and get through without any real issue while gaining more experience and familiarity with the digital roadbook and the rally bike. Coming from the mountains and forests of British Columbia, racing at high speed in the desert takes some adjusting to. Just went you think you are going fast, you realise just how much faster you could be going and the KTM 450 Rally takes everything you throw at it. It was so confidence inspiring to ride and all of it together I was starting to build my pace. Despite how fast of the sections were, there was also a remarkable about of technical rocky tracks that beat you up and wear you out.
With hump day behind me and with renewed energy, I committed to trying to step up the pace another level on Stage 4. The morning was spectacular with fast and flowy tracks and beautiful light painting the desert landscapes. It was the dream of racing racing incarnate. After the refuel I missed a track I was meant to take and while scanning the landscape to try to see it at low speed, I dropped my front wheel in soft sand and was off the bike and on the ground before I could process what was happening. It wasn’t a big hit, but I immediately felt the pain in my right wrist, the same one I had sprained on Stage 2. Shaken but determined to forge ahead, I tried to shake it off. While I managed to continue, I lost the flow I had enjoyed in the morning. After 30 or 40kms I still hadn’t managed to get my mojo back so I decided to not push and just get through the stage. Despite the setbacks, I still managed to move up to 62th overall.
With one day remaining and the knowledge that I could ride despite my wrist, I was determined to finish strong. That wasn’t exactly the case though. From the beginning my wrist was extremely painful and ultimately I couldn’t hold onto the bike to take the big hits or unexpected deflections from the absurd amount of rocks on the trail. I got hung up on one navigation point in the roadbook and felt like I was tumbling backwards as the fatigue from the past week really kicked in.
Thankfully we made it to the finish line and even managed to hold onto 62nd overall. When I returned to France I had an X-ray on my wrist and learned that I had a fracture of the radius and I was put in a caste. That’s racing!
Before the race if I was told I could finish 62nd I would have said everything would have to go perfectly for that to happen. In hindsight, that was not the case at all. With the experience from this race, and with some better preparation it gives me the confidence that if I am accepted to take on the challenge of the Dakar Rally in 2028, I have to potential to stay in front of the snowball.
The main things I plan to change for the future are actually riding a motorcycle before a race, developing more upper body strength, bike setup (dialing in suspension), efficiency in the dunes, nutrition during the special stages and during recovery in the bivouac, and bivouac support. I raced Rally du Maroc without a mechanic, preparing the bike each evening myself with some help from The Gear Shop team when they weren’t working on the Bronco Raptor. I made this choice to keep costs down, because it was a 5 day rally with relatively much less wear and tear compared to a 2 week Dakar, and because 4 of the stages were loops out of the same bivouac. This meant The Gear Shop’s service truck would be in the bivouac when I returned and not still en route due to the difference in departures for the bikes and cars. It worked, but for a Dakar I will need an independent service vehicle that can keep pace with the motorcycles and be in the bivouac when the bikes arrive. Ideally I would also share a mechanic with another racer to allow more time to rest and recover.
Lots to work on, but I am proud of what we achieved. Morocco was a dramatic step up compared to racing at Sonora Rally in scale, distance and perhaps most significantly, how rough the terrain was. Dakar will be another step up from this. Bring it on!