On Track Off Road No. 194

FEATURE
you see their tracks and just gas it. That’s
why it is important to know who is opening
the stage and to know how much confidence
you can have.”
“Sometimes people try and do sneaky
things, like riding the wrong way and confusing
the guys behind…but then it gets a
bit tricky,” he grins. “The first guy opening
a stage has the responsibility of the whole
race on his shoulders in some way. Sometimes
he can get lost. So, you constantly
have to check and make decisions. If there
are ten days in Dakar and stage four is
sand and is really difficult then nobody
wants to win day three!”
“I REMEMBER ONE DAKAR THERE
WAS A REALLY LONG STAGE AND I
MADE A NAVIGATION ERROR. I HAD
BEEN RACING FOR SEVEN HOURS
AND IT WAS FIFTY DEGREES. I HAD
NO WATER AND I WAS BEYOND
DESTROYED. I WAS SHIVERING
DESPITE THE TEMPERATURE...”
Sunderland has tasted the utter dejection
of losing his way among a complicated
process of hitting waypoint markers and
controls. “In my first Dakar with KTM I
won Stage 1, and Stage 2 was 470km and I
was doing super-good but in the last 30ks
of the stage I got lost for two hours. I was
devastated. I arrived like a drunk person.
You are dehydrated and you are mentally
fatigued because you’ve been riding many
hours and you are not as mentally alert as
you should be. The urgency to try and get
to the finish and not let the whole stage go
downhill means you make rash decisions.”
Painted and coloured between warnings
and directions my roadbook is wound into
place through the box on the KTM and
with the November sun working wonders,
we start to ride. Concentrating on the road
and path while electronically spooling the
roadbook with my left thumb - thanks to
a small switch under the handlebar - and
interpreting the notes is a mind-boggling
feat of multi-tasking. After about 10km it’s
possible to get a bit of a rhythm. I spend
less time looking down and become quicker
with the winding.
This swift blast is the equivalent of a run
to the local shop for Sunderland. Conquering
tiredness and fighting his own performance
demons is another component of
the Dakar. Thankfully it is an experience we
don’t have to taste but our riding companion
– who snapped his femur rallying less
than three months before the 2016 edition
and had to watch it from his sofa - is able
to elucidate. “The team can do as much
as they can and be absolutely perfect but
from something like 3am until 4pm it’s
all on you: ‘there’s your bike, have a good
day.’ You cannot make any mistakes. You
get so tired. The accumulative side is horrendous.
You start slacking.”
“The first three days always seem really
hard, then once you get past day four –
and as long as nothing has happened like
picking up a small injury or suffering a
drama – then you kinda get in the swing of
it,” he shrugs.
“Often it is the tough moments where you
find out a lot about yourself,” he reflects.
“I remember one Dakar there was a really
long stage and I made a navigation error
quite close to the finish. I had been racing
for seven hours and it was fifty degrees.
I had no water left in my CamelPak and