 
Ricky Brabec: “In rally, everything can change. But
what really matters is who crosses the line first”
Ricky Brabec proved himself to be one of the clear favourites in the most
recent edition of the Dakar Rally. The rider could have even grabbed the final
glory had it not been for a mechanical setback. From the Californian desert,
this budding star of the Monster Energy Honda is, once again, poised to shine
in the most important race of the year.
How are you feeling physically and how are the preparations for the next
Dakar going? What are you expecting from it?
Physically, I feel really good. Mentally, I’m still working on it. I had a
tough break in the 2019 Dakar and it was pretty hard getting back in the
saddle and pushing for victory after that one. There’s a lot of emotions and
mixed feelings. But unfortunately what is done is done. So now we have to push
and hopefully gain the confidence and the speed back as we head into the Dakar
2020 with more confidence and hopefully with a bit more speed. We will keep
the fight alive and show up in Saudi Arabia Dakar ready for a full-on fight.
Last Dakar you took a huge step and you were leading the rally up until
a few days from the finish. In the next Dakar you will be one of the
favourites for the victory.
Being one of the favourites is cool, but there’s a lot of people that think
that if they are favourite, they’ll have a lot of ‘water-boys’
supporting them, but for me, coming from America, we do things a lot
differently. I’m not expecting other riders to ride for me and I’m not
going to ride for other riders. We are all in the race together. We are all
trying to win. But in the end, when one of our team-mates wins, yeah, that guy
won, but the whole team also wins. I’m really big at being a fair player.
For me I will do the best I can at the Dakar. Hopefully I can come out on top
and make all my friends and family proud.
 Is
it better to start the race as one of the favourites or one of those in the
background?
To start as a favourite I think you might have a lot of weight on your
shoulders because everyone is watching you. But I prefer to start as an
underdog and then come in and show people ‘Hey! Here I am.’
There’s about fifteen riders who could win the rally, so it’s not easy and
we are not going very slow. Every day anything can happen and everything
changes. The idea is to put in a really good first stage and start the rally
on a good note. Hopefully the organization plays it safe. It’s rally.
Everything changes. Every kilometre. What really matters is who crosses the
line first.
The rally will change this year as they will give you the roadbook in
the morning. You’ve already experienced this in Morocco. How will the race
change with this rule?
We will get pre-painted roadbooks. On four or six days we will get the
roadbook in the morning. It definitely slows the rally down and makes the
riders think a bit more. We won’t just look down and see the colours as
usual and know what we are going to do. It’ll be more equal. You don’t
want to be really far up front or really far back, you always want to be
conservative and consistent and right in the middle: if you start at the
front, then you are going to be the first one opening with a roadbook that
nobody has seen. That can cause a lot of lost time. You want to finish fifth
to tenth everyday, that will make you do really well: you won’t lose a lot
of time, but you won’t gain a lot of time. You’ll always be in the fight.
So you come in on the last day and attack. I’m training with the new
roadbook at my house as best I can. Hopefully I can come into the Dakar with a
lot of experience of the new roadbook and be more comfortable when I get
there.
Saudi Arabia is a new country, so for this year all the riders arrive
under the same conditions.
We’re going to a different country, to Saudi Arabia, so no-one is familiar
with the country and no-one has any insight into the route. We’re all going
in pretty equal, not knowing what the heck is going on. It’s going be
fairer. You know, it’s not going to be like, ‘Hey I know a guy that says
that here is like this or whatever.’ We are all going in basically blind. We’re
all going to go in not knowing what each day is going to be like. We go to
Peru, we go to Argentina, we go to Bolivia, we go to Morocco, we go to Dubai
and we can go to Chile and we already know what each day is going to be like
by looking where we’re going or by what they’re telling us. This time we
are going to Saudi Arabia where we haven’t raced before. The new generation
hasn’t raced there. So we are going to start not knowing anything. They are
going to tell us what the stage is like and that’s all we are going to know.
So it’s going to be fairer. All the riders get the same roadbook, at the
same time of the day. I think the rally is going to come down to not just
speed, but being smart and being collective.
Could this be good for you?
Hopefully. We’ll see at the end of the Dakar.
You are an American and you live in California. If you go back to when
you first went to dirt races or desert races, did you ever imagine that one
day you would be leading the Dakar Rally, the toughest race in the world?
I would have done a lot of things differently had I known I would be where I
am at today. I probably would have paid attention better in math class at
school. I would probably have fewer tattoos… I probably wouldn’t have
grown up as a punk kid… I don’t know. I never thought that I’d be
leading the Dakar, but in 2019 I was doing that, and I believe that there’s
a little fight left in me to do it for 2020.
When you started to ride, did you know about the Dakar?
No. I didn’t know about the Dakar until 2008. One of my friends came to
watch the Dakar. I was watching Quinn Cody and Robby Gordon.
Out of a Rally bike… Your normal training is with a bicycle?
I ride a bicycle, I ride a mountain bike, I do some downhill… I go to the
gym, some motocross track. Hiking… I do a lot of things because I hate to
sit still and I hate to sit inside and I hate to watch TV. So I try to do
something whether it’s playing in the truck or riding trails, riding Enduro,
mountain biking, going to the downhill mountain bike park to go jumping with
the bicycle, hiking with friends, camping…
Is there any race similar to the terrain that you are used to?
The terrain near my house is like Morocco. Really rough and really dry. We
have many dunes near my home where I do my training and the Baja 1000 is very
close to my house. It’s exactly like Morocco. Hopefully it will be like
Saudi Arabia, so I will feel comfortable.
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