American Sara Price is set to tackle what she has called “the toughest challenge I’ve faced so far in my racing career.” The 2024 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia is like no other off-road event. It’s incredibly long, rough on machinery, sometimes unpredictable, and always demanding on drivers. Competitors will follow an approximately 5,000km course back and forth across the Arabian Peninsula over 12 stages and 14 days of racing through what is often an empty and trackless desert of nearly endless sand dunes.
A new stage format twist
Starting January 5 in AlUla with a Prologue and Stage 1, the fifth edition of the Dakar in Saudi Arabia will include a new 48-hour stage format held in the Empty Quarter during which contestants will have to s top at the next bivouac they come across once the clock strikes 4 p.m. They can help each other during the evening, but there will be no choice of repair companions, as the teams will be spread out over eight different bivouacs. Start the following morning will be at 7 a.m. to complete the remaining section of the route. The 12th and final Stage will finish at Yanbu on January 15, 2024.
Price is ready
Price’s extensive motorsports resume includes motocross, short-course and desert off-road racing, and short and long-distance rally racing. A multi-vehicle driver, she has successfully piloted everything from motorcycles and UTVs to rally race cars and 1,000-hp Trophy Trucks.
Career highlights include Price’s solo drive in a Trophy Truck to a second-place class finish over an exhaustingly rugged 800-mile-long course at the 2019 Baja 1000. Her initiation into rally racing was the 2015 Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, in which she finished first among rookie drivers. Most recently, Price competed in the 2023 Rally du Maroc “Road to Dakar Challenge” for UTVs, scoring a second in class and making history as the first American woman to earn a stage win in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship.
Preparation
To further her chance of success in rally racing, Price and navigator Jeremy Gray had been training with moto legend and navigation rally expert Jimmy Lewis before their impressive World Rally-Raid stage win. Price has continued working with Jimmy Lewis for the 2024 Dakar Rally. The team’s FIA-spec SSV class (formerly T4 class) Can-Am Maverick X3 for the 2024 Dakar Rally was built by Mitchell Alsup and he will be accompanying Price as mechanic.
Talking about her preparation, mindset, and goal leading up to the start of the 2024 Dakar Rally, Price said, “Training with Jimmy was essential and has made a big difference. I wanted to make sure I had the right people around me. I also have my mechanic. I feel comfortable with the car because I don’t have to double-check things. I know Mitchell has it handled because I trust him. I know how he works.