MALLE MOTO - Dakar 2023: This hardest and happiest day of my life will probably accompany my whole life! My first stage win at a Dakar and even in the MALLE MOTO class as the youngest starter!
Happy but completely broken - the efforts are still written all over my face. Now I will first have to fix my bike to be ready for tomorrow!
REPORT:
The days started pretty good and I soon made good progress to keep up with the best of the MALLE riders. But problems started to strike very soon#! At Km50 I realized the broken swingarm shaft, holder of the swingarm & the motor - sadly to say, that this is a real KTM Problem ( many were broken during the 2022 Dakar - some riders almost had to changed them many times ). Later I hit a stone and damaged my rear break disk - no rear break for the remaining 450Km !?#!
Some 50Km to the stage finish the weather changed so dramatically, that the organizers had to cancel the stage, to keep priority on the the safety of the riders. Floods have washed cars and codrivers away, which were badly stuck in floods of the floods . Many hcodrivers had to fix ropes to the cars, so they could be safed safed by some passing trucks )
It seems, that I was one of the last riders who managed to get to the finish and made all the way of this stage! And it paid off!
A:S:O: DAKAr RACE NEWS - 04/01/2023
I even made it to this "LIVE Dakar News" entry that day :) - Many a professional or "know-it-all" would probably smile at this joy, but for me it was a very big step and very emotional!