Toby Price interview
The reigning Dakar Rally champion is preparing to defend his title, and we caught up with the champ at the launch of a documentary about his recent exploitsThey say winning a title is hard but defending it is even tougher. Toby Price garnered massive respect from all corners of world motorsport when he won the Dakar Rally in 2016. Widely regarded as the most grueling contest of them all Price is now in the final stages of preparation for his return to South America to do it all again in less than two months' time. His backer, Red Bull, has released a 45-minute documentary on the likeable Aussie, which celebrates his success and confronts the injuries that almost ended his career. It’s an emotional journey with plenty of sacrifices. Bikesales spoke with Price after the premiere to get his first impressions and see what the future holds.
Bikesales: What did you think of the movie?
Toby Price: Yeah it came across really well. It tells the story of how it all began and the direction we’re going. The response we got from everybody there (at the Rising Sun community motorcycle workshop and café in Newtown) was amazing and they had nothing but good things to say so we’re looking forward to it getting released on December 6 on Red Bull TV.
You won the five-day Rally of Morocco recently. That was your final two-wheel event before Dakar. Has that given you good confidence for the defense?
Yeah we finished the last round of the world championships in Morocco and ended up coming away with third outright in the title and winning the round. So yeah everything went well there. I was navigating strong. Bike was feeling good and I’m feeling fit and healthy. Everything just was heading in the right direction. It’s definitely no guarantee to say that everything at Dakar is going to run perfect but for sure coming off that last race win gives that boost in confidence to know we’re ready for the up and coming challenge of Dakar.
In motor racing things never stand still. Is it a case of try to leave a good thing alone and take the same approach as the last Dakar or is KTM looking and some innovations. And do you plan to try anything new?
Yeah for me it’s just going to be a very similar approach. From the team side of things all the people that are on-board are the same so we’re not changing things drastically there. We’ve just got to make sure we put a good smart race in. That’s what it’s all going to come down to. It’s not all won in that first week and we’ve got to make sure we’re there in that second week and being competitive. It’s going to be a difficult race this year. We’re up in a lot more altitude so hopefully that’s going to fall in my favour a little bit more. I don’t mind riding up in altitude. Sometimes it can be more of a trial and error so hopefully no errors come up so we’ll see how we do.
Just expand on the riding at altitude. Are you prepped more for it or is it something you feel quite adept at?
It’s kind of a bit of both. My body is prepped for it and I find that I don’t have a lot of issues up there. We get up around four-and-a-half to 4800m so it’s fairly high. The bike definitely struggles a little for power and yeah you look across at some guys and they can get a bit dazy and not quite as switched on so hopefully that’s a good thing for us. At the end of the day though it can do a lot of damage to bikes if something does go wrong. So we’ve just got to make sure that we charge through those at a good pace but not go overboard and finish each stage strong.
Give our readers a snapshot of your schedule in between time because it’s quite busy but you also have a fun mission to Baja that you’re excited about.
Yeah for sure. We go to Spain first for three days for a final prep of the race bike for Dakar. We’ve just got to run it in, make sure everything is sweet with the bike, that there are no issues and no problems. It will then get crated up and sent to Argentina for the race. When we finish there I head straight from Spain to Mexico and we are going to run in the Baja 1000 in a Trophy Truck so it’s different to the two-wheel stuff but still navigation-style racing. We’ve gotta make sure we follow a bit of a GPS with the course and things like that so it’s still going to be a bit of training in some ways for Dakar but a lot safer being surrounded by a roll cage and wearing seat belts. Something completely different for me but we definitely want to be competitive and do the best we can there and put in a good showing on four wheels. Then it’s back to Morocco for navigation training. Back home for Christmas. And we take off between Christmas and New Year for Dakar. So a busy schedule but really looking forward to it.
Was it tough with the movie to look back on the (neck) injury and that period of your career? And what do you do training-wise to strengthen that area now a days?
It’s always tough to look back on those things and look at injuries and what’s happened in the past with family stuff but in some ways I wouldn’t change it for the world. (I believe) things happen for a reason and this is the path that’s led me to now and where I’m at. It’s exciting times right now but it’s good to see it pretty much put into one documentary… one film clip… to see how it all was and how it started for Toby Price really. Hopefully there’s more we can do for it. Hopefully a few more pages we can fill in. We’ve just got to make sure we stay fit and strong and healthy doing a bit more gym work to stay strong up around the shoulders and upper body strength to kinda yeah protect that area of my neck.
Racing the bike still seems like your main focus while the Trophy Truck experience is a bit of fun. What other things would you like to have a shot at? What’s on your ‘to-do’ list?
At the moment the two-wheel stuff is what’s paving my way. I still love and really enjoy the motorcycle racing so that’s not going to stop anytime soon. I guess I’m just trying to open some doors for later in life, and once the two-wheel stuff does finish we can go into four wheels and do some racing there. Look, there are so many things with the car stuff that you can do. I don’t mind tarmac driving and I don’t mind racing on dirt. I would love to continue doing Dakar on four wheels with a really good strong team, but in saying that I love the Trophy Truck stuff which is wide open, through the desert with big suspension – nice and smooth. I also really enjoy coming to the V8 Supercars and watching the events there so. To get a spot in the Supercars would be very difficult because it’s such a different game. Hopefully one day I might be able to test one and see if I like it… see if I’m competitive in it. Yeah you never know. I always leave my book open and if an option comes up I’ll grab it with both hands and go with it.
On behalf of our readers and everyone at Bikesales go get ’em. All the best.
Thank you very much.
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