Grzegorz Brochocki and Grzegorz Komar will run their second Dakar Rally in 2025, once again driving a Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo prepared by Overlimit. They’ll be hoping things go smoother than their début this year when they finished twenty-fifth in the SSV category after a tumultuous rally.
“We present the crew that will proudly represent Overlimit during the Dakar Rally 2025,” reads the team announcement on Tuesday. “Grzegorz Brochocki will be the driver, and the irreplaceable Grzegorz Komar will navigate in the right seat. The gentlemen have a score to settle from last year’s edition.
“Follow our preparations for the big start!”
Hailing from Poland, the two arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 2024 race as former winners of the Rallye Breslau in their home country as well as the Balkan Offroad Rallye. They also rode some decent momentum after finishing eleventh in SSV at their maiden World Rally-Raid Championship start in the 2023 Rallye du Maroc.
However, the Dakar was a trial by fire. Brochocki had some slight health issues at the start but shook it off, though a tyre rim did the same on the first leg due to multiple tyre punctures in the rocky terrain, a fate that befell many other competitors and caused Overlimit to run out of spare wheels by the end. The left steering knuckle then broke off the following day after hitting a hole, followed by a malfunctioning oil sensor in Stage #3 and an engine failure the day after. Time expired while trying to fix the car, preventing them from starting the fifth stage and relegating them to the Dakar Experience.
The two-day Chrono Stage, despite being the longest leg, was plagued by a broken drivebelt and fan though those were relatively easy to resolve during the rest day. After losing drive in the front right wheel when the race resumed, Stages #8 through #10 fortunately proved to be a clean affair. Things unravelled again on the penultimate stage when the right front brake calliper broke seventeen kilometres in, but everyone was relieved to ultimately reach the finish the next day. They were classified twenty-fifth, second to last among finishers, with a best stage outing of seventeenth in Stage #10.
“The first Dakar, I think we can call it a success,” Komar commented. “It’s definitely a difficult rally, though I must admit that I expected a much greater challenge. Maybe it’s because we took part in many other marathon rallies and it toughened us up as competitors. Of course, I learned a lot as a co-pilot: certain ways of finding the route and driving on cut tracks that looked completely different than the grids in the roadbook forced us to change our current habits. At the end of the rally, we felt very good and confident. When riding in position 100+ (overall), you have to improvise more and think less mathematically. An additional difficulty is that very often you have to drive the second part of the section into the setting sun and then in complete darkness. Visibility is probably the biggest problem of this rally: dust, setting sun and driving at night; you have to be prepared for this.”
In April, the team went on to compete at the Morocco Desert Challenge. After rolling at the 2023 edition, they safely completed the race second in the FIA T4 class and fifth among SSVs. The Grzegorzs continued their momentum by winning the Car Limited at Rallye Breslau in a Toyota Land Cruiser in July.
“The Dakar surprised me greatly,” began Brochocki. “For years, watching TV reports or reading the news, I had a completely different idea of this rally. In my opinion, there are actually two Dakars taking place in Arabia: the first one, in which the top racers (max. 20–25% of competitors) compete for the highest prizes. These are mostly professionals from factory teams or renowned rally stables, but they are dependent on sponsors and they need a good result at all costs; there is no fair play, all mistakes are immediately exploited by their rivals (including protests to judges), and they usually do not admit to their own mistakes – inventing tall tales about failures or ‘adventures’ on the route.
“The second group are competitors: ‘amateurs’ who want to complete the most difficult rally in the world, fulfill their dreams, and test themselves on the route. Competitors covering thousands of kilometres fight against themselves. The atmosphere is completely different, teams offer help to each other, provide parts needed for repairs on the route, tow, of course we compete with each other, but not at any cost. In this group, we also rode, rode and reached the finish line!
“The first group starts at three-minute intervals in the morning, usually finishes in the light of day, the second group starts late and finishes in the dark; that starts at thirty-second intervals, which results in riding in much more dust, and therefore lower results are achieved at speed, and there is a greater risk of damaging the car at the same time. Due to these conditions, the distance between the groups systematically increases every day.
“Personally, I expected it to be much more difficult. In my opinion, the difficulty of Dakar stems not from the difficulty of the route, but from the intensity and number of kilometres covered. Of course, in order to go to Dakar, you absolutely need to know how to drive in the dunes, otherwise you can seriously injure yourself or spend most of your time digging out your car… We covered all the kilometres in the roadbook (apart from 2 days), we didn’t have to avoid any obstacles or take a shortcut to the finish line.
“Unfortunately, we did not complete two stagesdue to a breakdown. On the third day, we broke down on the access road, and after it was repaired, we did not meet the start time limit. On the fourth stage, the breakdown occurred ninety kilometres before the finish line and we had to be towed. These problems also forced a need to replace the engine, resulting in another time penalty. If it weren’t for these adventures, our début start would have ended with a very decent result.
“I’m happy with the start, we crossed the Empty Quarter desert (the desert that is the largest sand-covered continuous area in the world)! We reached the finish line, we achieved our goal! However, I feel a certain dissatisfaction due to not completing two stages. I consider it a challenge given to us by Dakar… whether we will take it up, time will tell…”
The 2025 Dakar Rally runs 3–17 January.