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Toyota is looking to win their third consecutive Dakar Rally even without Nasser Al-Attiyah. While it is only three stages in, they already have some reason to be excited on Monday as Lucas Moraes scored his first career Dakar stage win while Yazeed Al-Rajhi from ally Overdrive Racing now holds the overall lead.

Both drivers beat back Audis for the leads in both as Moraes edged out Mattias Ekström by just nine seconds, while Al-Rajhi finished third behind both of them and Carlos Sainz‘s sixth enabled the former to leapfrog him for the top spot. Although not the first Hilux to win a stage in 2024 as Guillaume de Mévius claimed Stage #1, Moraes’ victory is the inaugural for the Toyota GR DKR Hilux EVO T1U, an upgraded version fielded for him and Seth Quintero by Toyota Gazoo Racing. By comparison, de Mévius and Al-Rajhi race the Hilux Overdrive, a different T1+ model.

“This is an unbelievable feeling. I have to give it up to Armand (Monleón, co-driver) and to the team this victory because the team delivered an amazing car. Armand was perfect today. A good road position,” said Moraes. “I would like to give this win for my daughter because she was in the hospital the last four days, but now she’s better. It was very tough for me as a dad being here, but this win means a lot now.”

Al-Rajhi’s podium moves him past Sainz in the general ranking, though only by twenty-nine seconds. Ekström sits third while Moraes’ win improves him by five positions up to third.

Toyotas ran 1–2–3 in the early stages of the day with Guerlain Chicherit, de Mévius, and Romain Dumas occupying the top spots. Chicherit eventually fell to twenty-sixth due to a disconnected water hose that caused the engine to heat up, while Dumas overtook de Mévius at the halfway point but settled for fifth.

Jackie Loomans, an entrepreneur who raced rallies that included the Dakar Rally and Africa Eco Race, passed away Saturday night at the age of 71. He had been battling lung and bone cancer for the past five years, which forced him to sell his Loomans Group plastics manufacturing company.

Loomans entered the Paris–Dakar Rally for the first time in 1987, a few years after surviving a brain hemorrhage, racing a Metro 6R4 with Loomans Group backing. He was one of the final drivers to pilot a Porsche in the Dakar when he drove a Porsche 964 in 1994. Two years later, he brought abord Koen Wauters as his navigator, triggering a lifelong friendship. Other co-drivers Loomans has had at Dakar include Olympic medal-winning judoka Gella Vandecaveye and motocross racer Joël Smets, racing vehicles that ranged from Land Rovers to Bowlers and G-Wagens.

He continued to race the Dakar until the final edition from Europe to Africa in 2007, followed by entering the Africa Eco Race, which took up the original Dakar route; the AER’s co-founder René Metge, who won the Dakar Rally thrice and raced a Porsche as well, died last Wednesday. He also raced in other African rallies like the Morocco Desert Challenge.

His passing occurred on the same day Wauters won the fifth leg of the Africa Eco Race, the first stage victory of his rally career. Loomans had kept in touch with Wauters’ Feryn Dakar Sport team prior to the AER, sending what co-owner Pascal Feryn called “several messages wishing us luck.” Feryn is racing a Toyota Land Cruiser that he purchased from Loomans.

“He showed me the way in the desert,” said Wauters about Loomans. “He brought so much joy to my life and gave me the Dakar virus. From that moment, I knew I would do this more often. We knew he was sick. He fought for a very long time. But in the end, he lost the battle. We bought his car last year, which we are driving now. He passed away on the day I won my first stage. It doesn’t get much more symbolic than that.”

Jackie Loomans: 1 February 1952 – 6 January 2024

Stéphane Peterhansel is the most accomplished racer in Dakar Rally history with fourteen overall victories on both two and four wheels. On Sunday, he added another milestone when he won his fiftieth Dakar stage, tying Ari Vatanen for the most in a car.

Peterhansel narrowly defeated fellow Frenchman Sébastien Loeb for the Stage #2 win, edging him out by just twenty-nine seconds. It is Peterhansel’s second Dakar stage victory with Audi after claiming Stage #10 in 2022 and eighty-third at Dakar as a whole if one includes his thirty-three as a bike racer; he also claimed a car leg at the 2008 Central Europe Rally, the replacement for that year’s cancelled Dakar Rally which is considered part of the race’s lineage.

“For sure, it’s much better than yesterday because at the end, it’s not really complicated to be much better than yesterday,” Peterhansel commented. “But first of all, we took pleasure to drive because the the track was not too much destroyed, not too much rocks. It made it really fun to drive the car. The setting of the car is really good. To take victory of a stage is always nice.”

His team-mate Carlos Sainz placed eighth and moved into the overall lead after Stage #1 winner Guillaume de Mévius, who remarked he “never opened a special and it’s not easy,” got lost multiple times and finished nineteenth. De Mévius’ Toyota colleague Seth Quintero was the highest finisher from their marque in third, edging out former Hilux driver Nasser Al-Attiyah for the last stage podium step by three minutes.

Although not as rocky—literally and metaphorically—as Stage #1, the fast nature of the second leg still proved challenging in its own way. X-raid Team’s Mini programme especially suffered in the dunes as their lead drivers Krzysztof Hołowczyc and Pau Navarro both failed to finish. Navarro’s wheel came off while going through a fast lefthand turn and he hit a patch of camel grass, causing him to hurt his hand. Hołowczyc slammed into a rock while trying to avoid a group of bike riders that he was trying to overtake, resulting in him crashing and hurting his hands and neck while co-driver Łukasz Kurzeja suffered some back pain. Despite their injuries, both hope to continue.

If the Dakar Rally‘s Prologue stage was a sucker punch to the mouth, Stage #1 was more like a giant kick to the groin. While many expected the 2024 edition to be one of the most difficult since the rally’s move to Saudi Arabia, they likely did not forsee the opening stage to be especially brutal. Many competitors especially early favourites ended up retiring after just two days of racing after crashing or suffering some other painful misfortune in the 405 kilometres of canyons and volcanic lava.

Seth Quintero described the leg as “probably the hardest Dakar stage we’ve ever seen,” while Sam Sunderland regarded the post-refuel segment as “some of the worst kilometres I’ve done in my life.” Austin Jones echoed the sentiment, calling it the “hardest opening stage of any Dakar I’ve ever done.” Benediktas Vanagas went as far as to call it a “survival stage” that the Amaury Sport Organisation “immediately threw us into.”

This was particularly apparent in the RallyGP class, where Tosha Schareina went from winning the Prologue to out of the race entirely when he crashed 240 kilometres in while running second and hurt his arm. Ross Branch stopped to provide assistance, earning him twenty-seven minutes in time credits that boosted him to the stage win over Ricky Brabec and Mason Klein. Branch notched his third career stage win at Dakar and assumed the overall lead, the latter a first for Hero MotoSports.

It was not an all celebratory feeling for Hero, however, as Joaquim Rodrigues hit a rock at KM 82 and smashed his head into the ground, briefly knocking him unconscious. His Hero colleagues Joan Barreda and Sebastian Bühler, along with Maciej Giemza and Stefan Svitko, waited with him and all earned time removed; Bühler also fell earlier in the stage and damaged his handlebar. Rodrigues ultimately did not suffer any head injury but fractured his thumb, continuing a difficult year for him after breaking his femur at the 2023 Dakar Rally then hurting his shoulder the day before what was supposed to be his racing return at the Rallye du Maroc in October.

“Today is a day of mixed emotions for us. The light and shadow are very close in this year’s Dakar: an unfortunate exit for JRod, and Ross wins his third stage for Hero, all in the same day,” said Hero manager Wolfgang Fischer. “The victory is also at a great margin, and we are extremely proud to put Hero on the overall lead at the Dakar Rally for the first time in our history. I look forward to a great race ahead.”

The Prologue stage is the first big test of a rally raider’s ability against other competitors, giving them a place to shake off any last-minute rust before the “real” race begins the following day. Indeed, most of those who pulled onto the starting podium to begin the 2024 Dakar Rally are hoping what happened Friday will be the last time they occur.

Multiple drivers found themselves losing time in the Prologue due to a navigation error, most notably Nasser Al-Attiyah as the twice reigning Dakar winner missed an intersection and lost some time. Tim and Tom Coronel did the same, going straight instead of turning right and they had to turn around.

“The stage is short but we made a little mistake because there was a lot of road there,” Al-Attiyah commented. “We missed one junction but I think we finished in a good way.”

As this mistake relegated Al-Attiyah to twelfth, Mattias Ekström scored Audi’s second consecutive Dakar Prologue win ahead of the former’s Toyota successor Seth Quintero. Al-Attiyah’s new team-mate Sébastien Loeb led a Prodrive contingent in third with Marcos and Cristian Baumgart in tow; Loeb’s eponymous SSV team topped their class as well with Xavier de Soultrait, marking the first time a Polaris RZR won a Dakar stage since Patrice Garrouste claimed the penultimate day in 2018.

Reigning SSV Dakar champion Eryk Goczał led his uncle Michał in their first Dakar as a Challenger team. WRC veteran Kris Meeke, a late replacement for Kees Koolen, finished third.

As he gears up for his maiden Dakar Rally, Lukas Lauda will do so sporting an iconic look. His #347 Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo will be painted with a red-and-white pattern modelled after the Marlboro-sponsored McLaren MP4/2 that his father Niki Lauda raced to the 1984 Formula One World Championship; his helmet also boasts the same design including the Marlboro logo, though with the text changed to his team South Racing Can-Am.

McLaren’s MP4/2 dominated the 1984 season as Niki Lauda and Alain Prost combined to win twelve races, securing them the constructor’s title by a whopping eighty-six points. Although he had five wins to his team-mate’s seven, Lauda edged out Prost in the closest driver’s championship battle to date by just half a point. The title was Prost’s third and the last of his decorated F1 career.

While Niki is a racing legend and younger brother Mathias Lauda eventually pursued his own driving career that led to an FIA World Endurance Championship in 2017, Lukas instead became a sports manager and served as Mathias’ agent. In 2022, Lukas decided to try his hand at cross-country rally by competing in the Hellas Rally Raid in Greece with the help of Dakar bike veteran Heinz Kinigadner.

He further built up his racing portfolio in 2023 by winning the SSV class at the Tuareg Rallye in Morocco. In October, he entered the World Rally-Raid Championship’s Rallye du Maroc, which is often used as a final dress rehearsal for those racing at Dakar, with South Racing.

Lauda achieved his primary goal of reaching the finish as he placed thirteenth overall in the T3 (now Challenger) category.

Mashael Al-Obaidan was originally set for her third Dakar Rally in 2024, but will ultimately skip the event.

She was originally scheduled to race the #335 Can-Am Maverick X3 in the Challenger (formerly T3) class under her Team Mashael banner. Rémi Boulanger was tabbed as her co-driver, but her bowing out prompted Boulanger to instead commit to the Africa Eco Race taking place concurrently with the Dakar.

“Unfortunately, sitting out of @dakarrally this year! One less competitive driver but I’m excited to witness the adrenaline fueled performances of my fellow rally drivers,” wrote Al-Obaidan. “Rest assured, I’m gearing up to make a fiery return soon! Wishing everyone the best on this thrilling journey!”

Al-Obaidan was the first Saudi woman to receive a rally licence, which eventually led to her Dakar début in 2022 two years after the event moved to her home country. She finished seventeenth in the T4 (now SSV) category as one of two female Saudi drivers alongside Dania Akeel. For 2023, she moved up to T3 with South Racing Can-Am and placed twenty-fourth.

Although Al-Obaidan will not be able to represent Saudi Arabia, nine other competitors will pick up the pace including Akeel and Maha Al-Hamali, the latter set to be the third Saudi woman to take part.

Ricky Brabec carried the Stars and Stripes to victory at the 2020 Dakar Rally, becoming the first American to win the legendary race in the bike category. However, he feels his countrymen and women have not been getting the love that would ensure they have a place in off-road racing.

In an interview with Wade McElwain of SportsBoom.com prior to the 2024 race, Brabec explained it is getting increasingly difficult for Americans to find their break in off-roading due to the decline in factory support in recent years. Brabec is one of the exceptions in rally raid specifically as a member of Monster Energy Honda Rally Team, as is his new team-mate Skyler Howes who spent much of his career on his own before finding his break with Husqvarna in 2021. Both compete in the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s RallyGP category for factory-level riders; although fellow RallyGP competitor and California native Mason Klein has a partnership with Kove Moto that gives him factory-level access to their resources, he is still by and large a privateer competing with his family-run operation.

“For the industry of motorsports, it’s really tough. I think when I got into where I’m at, it’s hard to say because in America, there’s not really any off-road racing factory-supported riders,” began Brabec. “I would say I’m the last generation of it because right when I was trying to make a big push to get to where I’m at, there wasn’t much support, but I was able to get in and get support.

“But then ever since then, 2015, I haven’t seen very much support being handed out so it is tough for Americans to make it in the off-road world. The rally world is definitely where you want to be, where you want to go, but even within the last two years, I’ve seen things kind of going, not downhill but definitely slowing down. It’s a shame. You look at all these other sports and off-road is definitely a unique one. There’s a lot that goes to it, but it’s just unfortunate that a lot of people are taking away from it at the same time.”

This sentiment can extend to other forms of off-road racing in America as well. Short course is perhaps the most notorious case, having enjoyed national coverage and support from manufacturers throughout its heyday in the late 1980s and 1990s until manufacturers withdrew their backing at the turn of the millennium; nowadays, it is not uncommon for short course series to take the stage as the preeminent championship only to fold shortly after due to financial pitfalls or tensions boiling over, and the current mantle holder Championship Off-Road was recently threatened by a breakaway series that ultimately did not come to fruition. Although short course remains quite popular today, it is certainly nowhere near where it once was.

After over a decade of competing in the Truck Series, Young’s Motorsports will introduce an NASCAR Xfinity Series division for the 2024 season, fielding the #42 Chevrolet Camaro for Leland Honeyman Jr. Honeyman will compete for Rookie of the Year honours.

“Joining them as they enter this exciting series, I’m confident about our collective potential for the upcoming season,” Honeyman commented. “The prospect of racing full-time in Xfinity adds an extra layer of excitement, and I can’t wait to contribute to our team’s journey and make our mark on the track.”

The 18-year-old is no stranger to Young’s, finishing third in the 2022 ARCA Menards Series East championship with the team. He also made his Truck Series début with the team that year at Bristol, where he finished twenty-ninth.

He signed with Alpha Prime Racing for a part-time Xfinity schedule in 2023, while also making select entries with Emerling-Gase Motorsports and MBM Motorsports to mixed results. Honeyman qualified for eight of ten races entered with a best finish of twenty-first at the Charlotte Roval for APR. While mainly focusing on Xfinity, he also ran the combination race between the national ARCA series and ARCA West at Phoenix, where he placed eighth.

Meanwhile, Young’s fielded three trucks in their main series spearheaded by the #12 of Spencer Boyd, who finished twenty-eighth in points, and the multi-driver #02 and #20. Combined, the team scored two top-ten finishes both courtesy of Kayden Honeycutt.

With Spire Motorsports acquiring Kyle Busch Motorsports after the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, they were keen on retaining assets that include Chase Purdy. After driving the #4 for KBM, he will pilot Spire’s new #77 Chevrolet Silverado RST in 2024.

Purdy has been competing full-time in the Truck Series with 2021, spending each year with a different team starting at GMS Racing followed by Hattori Racing Enterprises and KBM. In his only season in the #4, he placed a career-best eleventh in points with eleven top-ten finishes, a best run of second at Texas, and two poles at Homestead and Talladega.

“Chase Purdy is really coming into his own as a driver and we think pairing him with a crew chief the calibre of Jason Trinchere will elevate his level of competitiveness immediately,” said Spire Motorsports president Doug Duchardt. “We put a lot of thought into putting Chase together with the right person and at the conclusion of that process, it was very clear that Jason is the person to lead the #77 team. This is a combination we expect to set a very high bar in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.”

Spire, primarily a Cup Series operation, already fields the #7 truck on a part-time basis since 2022. Nine drivers—Marco Andretti, Alex Bowman, Jonathan Davenport, Austin Hill, Derek Kraus, Carson Kvapil, Corey LaJoie, Kyle Larson, and Layne Riggs—drove the #7 in 2023, with Larson winning at North Wilkesboro. The truck will remain a multi-driver vehicle in 2024 with Busch expected to be one of the drivers.

The team opened the #77 for the 2023 season finale at Phoenix, where Kraus finished twenty-eighth.

Mason Klein‘s first race with Kove Moto was almost over before it began when he discovered his Kove 450 Rally EX was stuck at customs in Dubai just a day before final scrutineering for the Dakar Rally was set to conclude. Fortunately for him, the Kove crew was deployed in a van for a late night excursion across the Saudi-Emirati border to fetch the bike and will make it back to the bivouac in Al-‘Ula in time for Thursday’s closing inspections and the start of the race on Friday.

The 2024 Dakar Rally is set to be Klein’s début with Kove, having joined forces with the Chinese marque after losing his funding at KTM which cut short his rookie season in the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s RallyGP category. Although he enjoys the same level of access to Kove’s resources as their factory riders like Neels Theric and Xavier Flick, he is technically not part of their works programme and is still a privateer competing under the Klein Off-Road Racing Team banner.

Had the team not been able to get to Dubai and back in time, Klein would have had to look around for alternatives. Speaking with Enduro21, he stressed that he did not “want to ride any other bike,” but mentioned he would be open to returning to KTM if a slot was available.

“I’m here, everything is paid for, I just need a bike,” he explained. “Finishing is not my goal, I came here to get a result, that’s what I enjoy. It’s hard mentally. I hope we can get it back in time.”

Despite his fears, Kove quickly answered the call to duty.

René Metge, who helped turn Porsche into one of the most iconic rally raid marques during the Dakar Rally‘s youth in the 1980s, died Wednesday. He was 82 years old.

Metge was a factory driver for Porsche, competing in both rally and sports cars with the brand. He raced the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times starting in 1977 through 1987, winning the IMSA GTX class at the 1986 edition while sharing a Porsche 961 with Claude Ballot-Léna.

He entered the inaugural Paris–Dakar Rally in 1979, driving a Range Rover V8 with future two-time winner Bernard Giroux as his navigator though they failed to finish. The following year saw his only stint in a truck as he piloted a Leyland Marathon VSD to a seventh in class before returning to Range Rover for the next three editions. He broke through in 1981 when he won the overall with Giroux by his side.

Two more years in the Range Rover ended in retirement before he committed to Porsche’s new rally programme formed for 1984. Despite the route being perhaps the toughest up to that point, he and Dominique Lemoyne débuted the team on a strong note as he scored his second win in a Porsche 953 (a souped-up Porsche 911) to become the first repeat winner in Dakar history. Metge added a third title in 1986 in a Porsche 959, completing a 1–2 finish for Porsche with Jacky Ickx placing behind him. With his Le Mans win later five months later, he joined a rare company of drivers with victories in both, let alone in the same year.

In 1987, Metge was named director of the Dakar Rally and served in the position for two years.

2024 may have only just started, but it is already time to shift back into racing mode. On Friday, the forty-sixth edition of the legendary Dakar Rally will begin.

As we have since 2022, The Checkered Flag is excited to present live coverage and daily recaps of each stage and the entire World Rally-Raid Championship. But with every new year also means the arrival of new fans wondering what the fuss is about.

Confused on where to start? We’ve got you covered in this nifty guide.

What is the Dakar Rally?

The Dakar Rally was founded in 1977 as the Paris–Dakar Rally. While rally raids were held in years prior, they started to grow in prominence—especially in Western Europe and North Africa—during the late 1960s and 1970s. One of these events, the World Cup Rally from Europe through the Sahara Desert and back, inspired Thierry Sabine to create the Dakar. The inaugural edition was held just after Christmas 1978 and into 1979, taking competitors from Paris to the Senegalese capital of Dakar.

Over the next three decades, the Dakar evolved into a symbol of the great rally experience as those like Jacky Ickx and Ari Vatanen to Jean-Louis Schlesser and Stéphane Peterhansel etched their names into history. The magic eventually ended in 2008 when the race was cancelled due to security concerns in Mauritania, prompting a move to South America from 2009 onwards; although the relocation meant it no longer goes through Senegal, the rally retained the Dakar name. Even in a new environment, Peterhansel continued to be the race’s lead figure alongside Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz.

With the Dakar Rally set for its fifth run in Saudi Arabia, the Africa Eco Race continues to fill the void left on the legendary route from Europe to the Senegalese capital of Dakar. 122 entrants comprise the field for the 2024 AER, spread across five divisions and sixteen classes.

Philippe Gosselin and Štefan Svitko are at the 2024 Dakar Rally and will not defend their victories in the Car and Bike classes, respectively, though Tomáš Tomeček is back and seeking his third Truck win. Various Dakar regulars have also opted for the AER such as Feryn Dakar Sport, who was barred from running the 2023 Dakar after failing FIA pre-race scrutineering, and 2023 rookie Rubén Saldaña Goñi, who opted to continue working as a ghost rider for Nicola Dutto. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the former chairman of Nestlé and Formula One Group, and his brother Andres are racing Mitsubishis after previously entering the 2023 Dakar Classic.

Dutto, the first paraplegic rider to complete the AER in 2020, returns to the race two months after conquering the legendary Baja 1000. His team for both Baja and the AER include Goñi and Julián Villarrubia Garcia.

Amine Echiguer, the 2022 World Rally-Raid Champion in the Rally3 category, is set for his first Africa Eco Race. Marco Aurelio Fontana is also a newcomer to the race, coming over from the cross-country cycling world

Yoshimasa Sugawara enters his first AER since 2020. He holds the record for the most Dakar Rallies started with thirty-six form 1983 to 2019, mainly in a truck before switching to an SSV for his AER début. For 2024, he will race a Suzuki JB64 Jimny.

John Thomas “J.T.” Lundy, who was the co-owner of NASCAR Cup Series team Ranier-Lundy and controversially oversaw horse racing powerhouse Calumet Farm in the 1980s, died Wednesday at the age of 82. According to his son Robert, he fell in November and hit his head, from which he never recovered.

Lundy purchased a fifty percent stake in Harry Ranier‘s Ranier Racing team in 1984, two years after he took over Calumet Farm from his in-laws. Calumet Farm, one of the most successful Thoroughbred stables in history with ten Kentucky Derby victories, sponsored IndyCar legend A.J. Foyt at the 1983 Indianapolis 500 and Foyt’s family also owned horses from the farm. Ranier, a coal magnate and fellow Kentucky native who founded Ranier Racing in 1967, also enjoyed horse racing and ran his own farm.

“We’ve had a good relation for years. J.T. lives just four miles from my home,” Ranier said in 1984. “When I asked if he wanted to get involved, he showed interest.”

The newly renamed Ranier-Lundy outfit won in Lundy’s maiden race as a co-owner at the 1984 Daytona 500 with Cale Yarborough, who also claimed the 1983 edition. Piloting the #28 Hardee’s car with Waddell Wilson as crew chief and manager, Yarborough won five times under the Ranier-Lundy banner. Davey Allison, a journeyman driver, was tapped to drive the #28 in 1987 and won twice that year. Despite Allison’s bright career prospects, Lundy left the team at season’s end.

Yarborough, Wilson, and Allison have since become NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees; Yarborough, a three-time Cup champion, passed away on Sunday. Ranier died in 1999, but his son Lorin continued the family’s presence in the sport by running a Truck Series team under the Ranier Racing name as well as a driver development programme for Chevrolet.