Yes, they made it!
Last month, at the time when we released our usual newsletter, we could not celebrate, because neither of the two races were finished yet.
But now we can finally confirm that our two GIVI supported riders Ricky Brabec and Alessandro Botturi scored two fantastic victories in the two most grueling rallies of the year.
Brabec, aboard the factory Honda HRC CRF450 Rally, is the first American to win the Dakar Rally, also breaking a KTM winning streak of 18 editions in the process. Ricky would have easily won last year's edition, too, but a heartbreaking engine failure forced him to retire when he was leading by a comfortable margin and just a few days to go.
This is why the victory in the 2020 edition, the first of the "new chapter" after the competition moved from South America to the desert of Saudi Arabia, also had the taste of revenge for Brabec.
Born and raised racing in the high desert of Southern California, Ricky debuted at the Dakar in 2016: before that he was already one of the brightest stars of off-road racing in the USA, having won the prestigious Baja 1000, Baja 500 and San Felipe 250 all in the same year, in 2014.
After his dominant victory at the 2020 Dakar Rally, Brabec is destined to become as big of a legend as his friend and mentor, Johnny Campbell, who won a record 11 editions of the Baja 1000 and was instrumental in developing the early prototype of the CRF450 Rally race machine.
In Northwestern Africa, Alessandro Botturi was able to put his seal on yet another edition of the Africa Eco Race, that the Italian rider now dominated for two years in a row.
The race, which follows the itinerary of the original Paris-Dakar of the early 80s, has quickly become one of the most coveted events of the rally season, even if the factory teams are not 100% involved and committed yet. Many new fast and young riders are cutting their teeth in this competition, looking for the spotlight and waiting for a chance to be noticed by the top teams.
No matter how young, fast and hungry, all the new kids had once again have to bow to the king in 2020: almost 45 and veteran of many races and battles, Alessandro Botturi knew exactly when to attack and when to hold back, setting the pace early on, with a couple of stage wins. He then waited for his competition to try to take the victory from him and his Yamaha, but nobody had the speed and the heart of the "old" Italian lion, and he was able to celebrate another triumph on the shores of Lac Rose, in Senegal.
