PERUVIAN GOLD
The 2019 Dakar was a little bit different but a whole lot the same. Held entirely in Peru, the 41st edition was the shortest Dakar on record and saw 137 bikes taking on 10 stages. But at the end there was a very familiar orange hue to the podium.
KTM won its 18th straight Dakar, which is an insane stat. To win the toughest race in the world for damn near two decades in a row is the result of such an enormous effort that it boggles the mind.
“The 1-2-3 may look easy on paper, but if you follow the Dakar and how difficult it was to reach this result it’s just amazing what our people are doing,” explained KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer. “The bike preparation, logistics, trucks, physiotherapy and everything behind is all important. I really want to thank our fantastic team, it’s really the number one team in the world — how the guys prepare for the Dakar, how the engineers build the bike, how the riders do such a fantastic race.”
The podium was a 1-2-3 for KTM with the second and third placegetters each having won one of the previous two Dakars and the winner, Toby Price, bagging his second overall victory.
TOUGH BREAK
On December 15, less than a month from the start of the Dakar, Toby Price posted this message on social media along with an X-Ray of his wrist now carrying a screw in the scaphoid to hold it together: “Some more hardware for the collection, once again not the best prep but
