The Cool Down Lap: Stuart Gregory

With the annual Dakar Rally huge news these days, casual television followers of the world’s toughest motorsport event could be excused for thinking it is all about massive budgets, huge backup teams and glamour. That, however, is not the real story of the Dakar Rally. The event’s most interesting tales of grit and bloody-minded determination are found among privateer competitors. This is nowhere more prevalent than in the Original by Motul category for motorcycles.

The “Original” refers to the very first Dakar Rally in 1978, when 182 competitors with cars and motorcycles set off from Paris and raced through the Sahara desert to an obscure venue in Africa, called Dakar. Back then, the competitors worked on their own vehicles, catered for themselves at overnight halts and generally saw surviving the elements and finishing the adventure as their main aim.

Fast forward to 2020 and that is exactly what the competitors in the Original by Motul motorcycycle class do. They tackle the Dakar with a motorcycle, plus a box of tools and a small tent – the latter two items transported to overnight stops by a truck.

Competitors are not allowed any outside assistance, which means they ride hard throughout every day, followed by hours of hard labour at the end of it, fixing and fettling their motorcycles. Then they grab a quick meal and a few hours of sleep before repeating the process – 12 days in a row. Subscribing to this apparent insanity is 42-year old South African macadamia nut farmer Stuart Gregory.

“I grew up watching the Camel Trophy events on television and decided I wanted to take on risky and physically demanding things involving race vehicles,” he says. Motorcycle Enduro racing would fit the bill, but Stuart’s parents were not enthusiastic about the idea.

“They thought it would be both costly and dangerous and would not contemplate supporting it. I had to wait until I was 21 years old, earning my own money, before I could go racing,” he recalls. When he did, it was to good effect – over the last 21 years he completed the Roof of Africa race through Lesotho 13 times, the Desert Race various times, while bagging a number of provincial Enduro titles.

He also raced overseas on various occasions, with the formidable International Six-Day Enduro in Germany, The Red Bull Romaniacs race in Romania and the Sea to Sky race in Turkey some of his most memorable adventures. But, the Dakar Rally was always his ultimate goal.

“That is the Mount Everest of off road racing, and I just had to take it on,” Stuart says. Last year, the Port Edward farmer finally tackled the world’s toughest event which was staged in Peru over 10 stages, but the adventure came to an end after eight days, when his motorcycle’s engine broke.

Stuart headed home with a major task in his immediate future – to return to the great race more experienced, fitter, better prepared and with a brand new KTM 450 Rally Replica.

“When you get back home after a Dakar, you have to wake up and start thinking about the next one. I just had to return for unfinished business,” he says.

In preparation to tackle the dunes of the inaugural race in Saudi Arabia, he visited Dubai a number of times to practice rune riding, while maintaining a strenuous fitness regime all year long. Again, he would tackle the Dakar in the Original by Motul class. “That is the ultimate way of doing the Dakar, the hardest way, and I could not contemplate doing it differently,” he says.

He started this year’s race cautiously, though breaking the speed limit while riding through a village earned him a stern reprimand from the organisers at the end of the opening day.
Day two’s stage was fast and Stuart finished 18th in his category.

The next day saw the South African stopping twice to assist injured riders while they waited for the arrival of medical helicopters. Under the rules of the Dakar – which place an emphasis on sportsmanship and camaraderie, time lost by “Good Samaritans” is always adjusted for. Thus Stuart was given back the 32 minutes he lost in the process, leaving him 13th in his category.

Stage 4 brought a 17th place result. The next day faced riders with rocky conditions. “There were 50km of black rocks with no path, and lots of stones flung up by passing cars added to the challenge. It felt like the real Dakar Rally had finally started,” Gregory says.

It left him 11th in the category, which became a credible 13th place at the halfway point.  He maintained a good pace through Saudi Arabia’s notorious Empty Quarter the next two days, before being forced to take an unscheduled day off following the fatal crash of Hero Honda rider Paulo Goncalves.

While working on his motorcycle, he got to the bottom of a mystery that had been puzzling him for days.”I found out why I was struggling in the first week – the pin inside my steering damper had rusted solid. That’s why I was finding it hard to turn around rocks and my arms were getting surprisingly tired,” he reveals. “Now the bike felt much better and I could push a lot harder,” he added.

Day 10 was nerve-wracking day, with the limited visibility throwing up multiple surprises as natural obstacles appeared with very little warning. “It was super windy, but a lucky break with the navigation let me overtake a few other bikes,” says Gregory.

After 10 stages, he was closing in on his goal of finishing the Dakar and is a mere 40 minutes outside of the Top 10 in his category. The last two days included a marathon stage of 744 km, to give the race a real sting in the tail.

He rode through it with some nervous caution, to eventually finish the Dakar Rally 11th in the Original by Motul category and 63rd overall. To put this into perspective, only 27 of the original 44 starters in the category made it to the finish in Qiddiya.

Gregory will not be going back to the Dakar Rally any time soon. “It was a very costly experience and I have now fulfilled the dream of finishing the toughest of all motorsport events,” he says. This does not mean he has stopped racing – barely two weeks after getting back to South Africa he is riding in a local Enduro event.

He is sure the Original by Motul class will continue to grow. “No fewer than 44 of the 144 motorcycles on the 2020 Dakar were in the category and I believe those people exemplify the real spirit of the Dakar,” he says. And maybe, just maybe, Stuart Gregory will be among them again, in the future.

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