Australian Toby Price is currently battling through the World’s most brutal rally event – Dakar. After a steady start in his return from injury, Price has moved into sixth position outright. Read Toby’s thoughts after each day below.
STAGE 1 – 14TH POSITION O/A
Toby Price: “I’m happy to get that first stage under my belt. I didn’t quite get the result that I wanted but it was a really short stage and there’s a long race ahead. My plan is to build things up slowly and take each day as it comes. I bombed out hard early on last year so I wanted to get today done and then concentrate on getting into the race a little more. The pace is there, and my leg feels good so I’m excited for the rest of event.”
STAGE 2 – 10TH POSITION O/A
Toby Price: “It was the first stage with proper navigation today and I did ok. The cars ahead of us were everywhere – I think their numbers must have been halved after today, there were so many of them side-lined. I managed to catch Laia quite early on, around the 40 or 50km mark, and we rode together for a while. Overall, I am feeling good and inside the top-10 is not a bad place to be. I just need to concentrate on my riding, navigation and hopefully I can pick up the pace a little as the race progresses.”
STAGE 3 – 4TH POSITION O/A
(note: Toby was issued a penalty which was reported early, however it was later removed.)
Toby Price: “Everything felt really good today, I was really comfortable on the bike. I knew my pace was good and so I kept on pushing. I did come off the bike after a big drop-off from one of the dunes around the 140km mark. Luckily, I didn’t damage myself or the bike too much, the road-book got filled with sand though so for the rest of the stage I had to just ease my pace a little. One of the worst things was that I lost the end to my camelback in the crash and wasn’t able to keep hydrated towards the finish. Apart from that everything was good, you can see on days like today how important it is to stay focused and not make any mistakes. Hopefully I can keep up the same performance for the rest of the rally.”
STAGE 4 – 6TH POSITION O/A
Toby Price: “That was the most difficult day so far. We thought by starting in a group it would be like a nice day out riding with your friends but as soon as we got to the dunes, the going got really tough. The worst thing was the sand was really unpredictable – there were loads of soft patches that were hard to see and if you were the first rider to hit them you ended up dropping right back. The group I was in missed a waypoint so we lost a fair amount of time getting back on track. As a positive I finished the stage in one piece, I’m in a good start position for tomorrow so I’ll crack on and see if I can claw back some time then.”
Provisional Standings after Stage Four – 2018 Dakar Rally
1. Adrien van Beveren (FRA), Yamaha, 11:03:23
2. Pablo Quintanilla (CHI), Husqvarna, 11:05:18 +1:55
3. Kevin Benavides (ARG), Honda, 11:06:38 +3:15
4. Matthias Walkner (AUT), KTM, 11:08:46 +5:23
5. Xavier de Soultrait (FRA), Yamaha, 11:10:57 +7:34
6. Toby Price (AUT), KTM, 11:13:37 +10:14