Baydale Proudly Sponsor Wallace on his Mission For Dakar

With less than a month to go until the start of his adventure of a lifetime, North Yorkshire off-road motorcycle racer Robbie Wallace is finalising his preparations ahead of the 2025 Dakar Rally which gets underway on January 3rd.

The 27-year-old electrical engineer from Northallerton has featured on regional television and radio on the build up to the event, as well as in local newspapers, and last week was featured in industry-leading Motor Cycle News along with fellow British rider, and Isle of Man TT winner, James Hillier who is also contesting the event.

Here are Robbie’s thoughts ahead of the 2025 Dakar Rally:

“With only four weeks now until the Dakar starts, we are in the closing stages of preparation for this memorable journey and lots of things are finally starting to take shape. I have my specially designed Dakar race suit coming from South Africa which will be arriving shortly, I have compiled my nutrition and spares that I will need for my two-week endeavour, and I have been getting my fitness training in anywhere possible. This is always a challenge as my job demands working long hours in the winter months repairing power lines, it’s certainly not easy to find time to train, especially with the recent storms which has seen me often working through the night!

The fundraising night at the Golden Lion in Northallerton last month was a resounding success, raising a whopping £7500 which made me able to complete my final payment for the race and also put money towards other essential requirements. We had the bike on display, and we had over 130 guests there to support me, including chat show stars Max Coates, Dom Herbertson, and Phil Stead, with some superb raffle prizes and fantastic auction lots on offer. The evening was hosted by BSB commentator Larry Carter, so if you were there, can I thank you for your attendance and hope you enjoyed the evening. We plan to host another night early next year so I can tell the story of my adventure, so hopefully we can have another successful evening and raise some money for local charities.

I raced in the Qatar Baja in late October where I was able to gain more experience and confidence regarding my navigation skills. I’m pleased to say they were still up to scratch which has put me in a good mindset for Dakar. I was second in the prologue and seventh on day one before leading on day two. However, my KTM overheated in the dunes and ultimately caused a problem which left me eighth overall. The TCC Plant-sponsored Dakar race bike has been packed and shipped from Barcelona last week on its way to Saudi Arabia. We have prepared it meticulously so I’m confident we shouldn’t have too many issues but with an event such as the Dakar, anything can happen.”

During the actual Dakar event, Robbie will be keeping everyone updated with his progress whereby interim reports will be published to recipients on this mailing list, but he also plans to set up a What’s App group so he can send updates directly when he has the opportunity. To join the What’s App group, please send a mobile number to Robbie on 07930 287965 asking to be added.

Pictures : Robbie Wallace (left) with James Hillier, at the finish of the recent Qatar Baja, and in action on the event.

The 47th edition of the Dakar will see around 140 motorcycle competitors, as well as hundreds of car, buggy and truck drivers from all over the world converge on Bisha in the south west of Saudi Arabia starting with technical checks and administration on January 1st/2nd 2025 and then the Prologue on January 3rd 2025 before the competition starts in earnest the following day. There then follows a mighty 950km stage over two days on varied terrain, with competitors required to camp out overnight in the desert in a bivouac. At least five stages of the 2025 Dakar will take place on separate courses for safety purposes to reduce the danger of cars and trucks overtaking bikes, and another feature of the 2025 event is riders will have to service their own bikes for up to 800km on a couple of days. After 14 days incorporating 12 stages, Shubaytah, in the eastern part of the country and near the Abu Dhabi border, will welcome the weary finishers.