To pay tribute to the Empty Quarter and bid it a dignified farewell, the penultimate special was held to the south of Shaybah, in a vast and beautiful expanse of sand with chains of dunes as far as the eye can see.
Kevin Benavides leveraged his flair and adaptability to drag himself back into contention for the title in this final dune-surfing test, mixed with a return to gravel tracks at the end of the course, which set the stage for the most evenly matched dash to the line in Dakar history.
Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Agatha Christie and Quentin Tarantino would have had to brainstorm together to whip up a script as full of suspense as the one that played out near Shaybah on the eve of the Dakar finale. The authors, Kevin Benavides and Toby Price, had little concern for strategies or calculations, resorting to the brute force of their arms, the wags and wiggles needed to surf the dunes… and pulling the throttle to the stop whenever possible.
On the way to his seventh career stage win, the rider from Salta slammed on the brakes when he saw his teammate Matthias Walkner had suffered an accident, but he got back in pursuit of his other KTM stablemate, Toby Price, who now finds himself teetering on the edge between victory and defeat with 136 kilometres to go.
After the stage to Al-Hofuf, the race is tighter than ever before, with the Australian at the top of the general standings by a razor-thin margin of 12 seconds over Kevin Benavides.
After roughly 3 900 kilometres of racing, this gap amounts to barely 300 metres, a distance that both riders will be watching closely in tomorrow's finale on the road to Dammam.
While Skyler Howes has been a cut below the Australian and the Argentinian, it would be unwise to write him off, even though his deficit of a minute and a half to Price will be very hard to erase, not least because the exceptional starting order of the final special, in the reverse order of the general classification, means the American will be "flying blind" with Benavides and Price hot on his heels. They will be hard to shake off!
Toby Price led the standings by 28 seconds over Skyler Howes and 2′40″ over Kevin Benavides this morning. By the finish of the special, which he reached long after his opponents, the Argentinian had managed to take the triumph despite spending 23′10″ with Matthias Walkner, his teammate and winner of the 2018 Dakar, who exited the Dakar in a helicopter.
The elder Benavides banished the spectres that often plague champions after such an inauspicious event and went on to win the special after the time spent with Walkner was deducted. He relegated his brother, Luciano, who had been originally named the winner before receiving a one-minute penalty for speeding that cost him his fourth success in this Dakar.
The 2021 Dakar champion is only 12 seconds behind the Australian with one stage to go, something that has never happened before in the Dakar! At this stage of the race in 2014, Peterhansel led Roma by a comparatively comfortable 26 seconds. The previous record in the motorbike category had been set not too long ago. In 2019, Pablo Quintanilla started 1′02″ behind… Toby Price himself.
The Australian romped to victory in Lima, taking his second title after his success in 2016. To add injury to insult, the Chilean, riding a Husqvarna, ended up sore after he pancaked into the ground from a dune jump. Barring team orders in the Austrian clan, a 153 km sprint will unfold tomorrow, perhaps leading to the narrowest margin of victory in the history of the Dakar!
Quote of the day
Adrien Van Beveren: "It's my best Dakar"
"Today was not easy, a lot of broken dunes. At the beginning, I pushed really hard, but I jumped two or three dunes and got a little bit tense. I was scared to miss a drop, so I ended up riding safe. Fast, but safer. I tried to reach the finish and push as much as possible. We have no regrets. Still one day to push. It's my best Dakar, I think I'm doing good and happy with my performance.
ASO