Though he finished fourth during stage nine of 2020 Dakar Rally Tuesday, Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec has retained the overall lead.Brabec finished 3:55 minutes behind the stage-nine winner, Husqvarna Factory Rally Team’s Pablo Quintanilla. KTM Factory Racing Team’s Toby Price finished second (-01:54 minutes) and Monster Energy Honda’s Joan Barreda third (-02:42).With three stages remaining, Brabec now leads Quintanilla in the overall standings by 20:53 minutes.
Honda’s Ricky BrabecStage nine was the first of two marathon days of intense competition. Tuesday’s race was over 500 miles from Wadi Al-Dawasir camp to Haradh. It included 234-mile liaison to the start of a 255-mile special followed by another 62-mile link.Honda says Brabec managed Tuesday’s gaps at the head of the field exceptionally well. The Honda CRF450R Rally pilot finished fourth, which rewards him with a favorable starting position during Wednesday’s marathon stage.“We feel pretty good,” Ricky Brabec says. “We are here at a windy bivouac. We are another day closer to the American dream of winning the Dakar. There’s three days left and tomorrow is the marathon. We have a lot of racing to do. The main goal now is to focus and stay positive after the incident that happened a few days ago.“Right now we are going to rest and make sure our bikes are 100%, get some food, pack our bags for the marathon and try to stay positive. There’s a 21-minute gap in the general. So tomorrow Quintanilla and Toby start in front of me so the plan is to maybe catch them or maybe keep them in my sights.“That way they will start in front of me for the next few days. I’m not really sure what is going to happen so we are just going to stay focused and not lose the twenty-one minutes. The marathon stage is really cool and is very relaxing. You don’t have to see the team and it’s only the riders in the bivouac. You can really soak in the camp life, because by now it’s stage ten or eleven and it’s nearly time to go home. It’ll be nice.”State 10 of 12 of 2020 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia will take riders a total of 554 miles, including a 258-mile special throughout the Empty Quarter that includes the last 30+ miles in sand dunes.
Hello everyone and welcome once again to Ultimate Motorcycling’s weekly Podcast—Motos and Friends.
My name is Arthur Coldwells.
This week’s Podcast is brought to you by Yamaha motorcycles. Discover how the YZF-R7 provides the perfect balance of rider comfort and true supersport performance by checking it out at YamahaMotorsports.com, or see it for yourself at your local dealer.
This week’s episode features Senior Editor Nic de Sena’s impressions of the beautiful new Harley-Davidson Low Rider ST that is loosely based around the original FXRT Sport Glide from the 1980s. Hailing from The Golden State, these cult-status performance machines became known as West Coast style, with sportier suspension, increased horsepower, and niceties including creature comforts such as a tidy fairing and sporty luggage.
In past episodes you might have heard us mention my best friend, Daniel Schoenewald, and in the second segment I chat with him about some of the really special machines in his 170 or so—and growing—motorcycle collection. He’s always said to me that he doesn’t consider himself the owner, merely the curator of the motorcycles for the next generation.
Yet Daniel is not just a collector, but I can attest a really skilled rider. His bikes are not trailer queens, they’re ridden, and they’re ridden pretty hard. Actually, we have had many, many memorable rides on pretty much all of the machines in the collection at one time or another.
From all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!
