Kevin Benavides: “I’m going to recover, I’m going to come back and keep giving my best day by day”

Kevin Benavides does not remember much about his accident in May that prevented him from racing the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Desafío Ruta 40 in his home country. Most of this stems from the diffuse axonal injury he sustained to his brain, among a rash of fractured bones and other injuries that necessitated surgery. After staying mostly silent in the month since the crash, Benavides went public on Monday to discuss what occurred and his rehabilitation.

He and his younger brother Luciano Benavides had wrapped up DR 40 training in Salta for the day when they decided to visit Mantillo MX Park and get some laps in. Besides the head injury, he also broke his left elbow, left humerus, part of his cervical spine, and tore a radial nerve.

“I wanted to do a bit of motocross. Normally it’s the other way around, Luciano is the one who entices me,” remarked Kevin. “We had done a roadbook of almost 400 kilometres that day at over 4000 metres of altitude for over five hours. I was a little tired, but I wanted to do motocross that day.

“Honestly, I don’t know what happened that caused me to fall and hit my head so hard. It wasn’t just my head: I broke my humerus, my elbow, I cut the radial nerve, also some injuries in the cervical spine which made it noticeable that it was a big fall. The type of head injury I had is called a diffuse axonal injury. I don’t remember how the fall happened. I remember very few things about that day. The good thing about not remembering my fall is that I already want to ride my bike again.”

A diffuse axonal injury is a traumatic brain injury in which the brain’s nerve fibres, or axons, are disconnected when damaged. DAIs are one of the most severe TBIs that one could suffer, resulting in comas or severe impairment. Benavides was taken into intensive care, where his procedure took twice as long as scheduled.

While Kevin underwent surgery, Luciano was knocked out of the DR 40 when he fractured the top of his right femur after crashing in Stage #1.

“The same day I was being operated on, which started at 8 AM, supposedly it was going to last four hours and it was eight, when I woke up the first thing I asked was how Luciano was because it was the first day of the Desafío Ruta 40,” he recalled. “They told me he had fallen, so they brought my brother and put him in the room next to me in therapy. So there we were, I was in room 612 and he was in room 614. I didn’t forget those numbers. At least we made it easier: they visited me and then they passed by to visit my brother.”

The older Benavides has struggled with injuries since winning his second Dakar Rally in 2023. He missed three of the next four rounds in 2023 with a broken femur followed by a fractured wrist, the latter sidelining him for that year’s DR 40; his only other race was the Sonora Rally, where he raced fairly conservatively as he was returning from the femur injury.

“That’s the most painful part, making those you love suffer,” Benavides concluded. “I have a family of steel who has been able to deal with very hard days and have always been there for me. I also want to thank all the doctors and tell them that I’m going to recover, I’m going to come back, and I’m going to keep giving my best day by day.”

At the latest Dakar in January, he won three stages and finished fourth overall. Benavides and Red Bull KTM Factory Racing are not running the full season, with Argentina—the penultimate round of 2024—intended to be his first race since Dakar. KTM did not appear at the DR 40 whatsoever as his team-mate Matthias Walkner is out due to a severe leg injury while Toby Price left the team in March.