While his Dakar Rally début is not for over another year in 2025, Toby Hederics has a seven-race itinerary to pursue to prepare him for the effort. In addition to rallies in his home country of Australia, he will head overseas to participate in the Rallye du Maroc in October and the 2024 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.
Like the Dakar Rally, the Rallye du Maroc and Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge are stops on the World Rally-Raid Championship with the former serving as the season finale on 12–18 October. The Rallye du Maroc is typically used as a dress rehearsal for competitors ahead of Dakar.
The 2024 W2RC schedule will not be released until July, though the ADDC has been part of the championship since the inaugural season in 2022. It is held in late February and early March.
Both rounds—as is the rest of the W2RC calendar—are on the Road to Dakar programme, meaning Hederics can clinch free admission into the Dakar Rally if he performs well among entrants with no prior Dakar experience.
“Preparation for Dakar is intense, just like the event itself, it will take 24 months of consistent training off and on the bike,” he wrote in early June. “With fitness and gym included along with six to [eight] hours on the bike every weekend, completed in one day to simulate conditions and fatigue!
“It once was a dream, now it’s a goal.”
The son of Australian desert legend John Hederics, he announced his plans to enter the 2025 Dakar Rally in February, competing as a privateer under the Hederics Racing Australia banner. The following month, his journey to Dakar began by finishing third overall in the Condo 750 Rally, a 750-kilometre navigation-based rally in Condobolin, New South Wales. He will return to the event in 2024.
Besides Condo, other domestic races on his calendar include the 2023 and 2024 Sunraysia Safari Rally and the 2024 Hattah Desert Race. The 2023 Sunraysia Safari Rally is scheduled for 6–9 September and takes place in the outback of New South Wales in Wentworth; Hederics placed second among bikes in the inaugural edition in 2017 and in 2019. The Hattah Desert Race is held in Victoria.