Kove Moto will bring a triumvirate of bikes to their second World Rally-Raid Championship start at the Sonora Rally, and with more diversity in nationalities. Sunier will be the only Chinese and returning rider from the season-opening Dakar Rally in January, joined by new factory rider and Frenchman Neels Theric as well as the American Mike Johnson.
Theric joined Kove’s factory programme in March, becoming their first non-Chinese factory rider after finishing fifth in Rally2 at Dakar for GasGas. He will also run the W2RC-ending Rallye du Maroc in October and the FIM Bajas World Cup’s Baja España Aragón in July for the team, all of which will culminate in the 2024 Dakar Rally.
Johnson is the owner of Rally Comp, a metering device manufacturer founded in 2015 that riders use in conjunction with their roadbook to read details like distance and upcoming hazards via a built-in odometer. He raced at the Dakar Rally in 2014 and finished seventy-fourth overall among Bikes, while also taking part in events like the 2013 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge (a current W2RC leg) and Mexican 1000. The Mexican 1000 is scheduled to take place immediately after the conclusion of the Sonora Rally, and various colleagues of Johnson’s plan to do both as Malle Moto/Ironman competitors. He finished third at the 2019 Sonora Rally.
Prior to racing in multi-stage rally raid, he was one of the top bike riders in the point-to-point desert races of SCORE International, winning the Pro Moto 30 championships in 2009, 2011, and 2012; he also claimed the category under Best In The Desert sanction in 2009 and 2010.
Sunier and his fellow countrymen Deng Liansong and Fang Mingji represented Kove at the 2023 Dakar Rally, marking the Chinese manufacturer’s début in the event. All three reached the finish, with Sunier scoring the best finish of twenty-seventh overall in Rally2 with a best stage run of thirteenth. The effort was such a success that their bikes were donated to be immortalised in various museums.
To prepare for Sonora, Sunier participated in the Spanish Motocross Championship round at Catalayud earlier in April. Competing in the Elite-MX1 class, he finished twenty-fifth in the first race but retired from the second. Kove’s director Zhang Xue is a former motocross rider who hopes to bring the make into the discipline in the future.
Although Kove did not run Abu Dhabi, electing to run the Sonora Rally is a rather unsurprising choice as the manufacturer hopes to break into the North Aerican market. USA Motortoys serves as Kove’s distributor in America.
The Sonora Rally will take place on 25–28 April.