A decade after his last Dakar Rally, Piotr Beaupre will once again be at the start. He plans to enter the 2025 race in Saudi Arabia, competing in the SSV category with DUUST Rally Team providing support.
The Pole has recently been in Morocco, driving a Can-Am Maverick with DUUST co-owner Jacek Czachor as his navigator as part of the team’s Rally Training Center and Morocco Training Camp. DUUST is primarily a bike team but offers training and support for SSV drivers.
Beaupre previously raced the Dakar Rally when it ran through South America from 2012 to 2015, driving a BMW X5 under the Poland National Team (2012 and 2013) and NeoRaid Rally Team (2014 and 2015) banners. He finished fifty-second in his début before improving to thirty-seventh the following year. After retiring from the 2014 edition, he rebounded with a career-best thirty-third in 2015.
The NeoRaid Rally Team name stemmed from his company Neo Energy Group, which he founded in 2004. Beaupre initially began his entrepreneurial career in marketing before expanding to other fields like marketing and green energy. He helped co-found Call Center Poland, the largest call centre operator in Central Europe, in 1997 followed by the multinational EBS SA shopping centre chain. Outside of Neo Energy, he also created wind farm developer EcoWind and agricultural firm Fundusz Areał.
Outside of business, Beaupre has been interested in off-road racing sicne his youth, originally developing an interest in Land Rovers after watching the Camel Trophy. He raced a Ford MUTT and Mitsubishi Pajero in the Polish Cross-Country Rally Championship during the 1990s before expanding to rallies elsewhere in Europe such as Slovakia and Berlin. Beaupre has also competed in races like the Baja Aragón, Italian Baja, and Baja Portalegre 500, all currently part of the FIA World and European Baja Cups, in a Bowler Wildcat.
Besides the Dakar, his marathon rally experience includes the Silk Way Rally in Russia during the early 2010s. He finished twenty-eighth in the first race in his Bowler in 2011 before switching to the BMW. His latest SWR in 2016 ended with a sixteenth.
The 2025 Dakar Rally, now in Saudi Arabia, is scheduled for 3–17 January.