Dakar Rally: Meet Dania Akeel, the Saudi lady taking over one of many world's hardest motor races

Muricas News  — 

Her head cradled in a crash helmet, Dania Akeel’s voice crackles by way of the intercom above the roar of the engine and the push of wind by way of the windowless cabin of her rugged, black UTV.

“We’re so fortunate,” Akeel tells Muricas News Sport. “I imply, have a look at this place, it’s so stunning.”

The Saudi grasps the wheel, deftly navigating the car previous rocks and Joshua timber alongside a winding grime monitor, blasting it previous the rusting shell of a long-abandoned pick-up throughout the dry sand.

“We get to do that for a dwelling, proper?” continues 34-year-old Akeel, reflecting on her chosen occupation as she prepares for her second tilt on the notorious Dakar Rally, one of many world’s longest and most demanding endurance races.

Muricas News is about an hour north of Phoenix, Arizona, using shotgun in a Can-Am Maverick X3 X RS Turbo RR with one in all cross-country racing’s extra exceptional tales.

Barely over two years in the past, the Jeddah-born athlete had by no means even tried such a racing. Not solely that, Akeel additionally hails from a rustic through which girls have solely been allowed to drive on public roads since 2018.

‘The Dakar’ started life in 1978 because the Paris-Dakar Rally. It ran yearly from France to Senegal till 2007 however when the 2008 occasion was cancelled attributable to safety issues, the rally was transplanted throughout the Atlantic, and ran by way of South America till 2020, when it moved once more, to Saudi Arabia.

In the present day there are 5 main car classes within the rally: automobiles, motorbikes, vehicles, UTVs and quad bikes.

Akeel’s curiosity in motor automobiles goes again a lot farther than the arrival of this world-famous rally in her house nation.

“I had an enormous curiosity in automobiles after I was youthful,” she tells Muricas News. “It wasn’t essentially automobiles, truly, it was something that might that I may drive and that included bicycles.

“You understand, I simply love motion. I like being open air. I simply love the way it felt to speak to the machine, to get it to go from A to B.”

Her childhood was spent attempting every kind of various modes of transport.

“I began driving issues like go karts at a younger age, and issues like quad bikes,” she explains. “After I was a bit older, I drove two wheeled grime bikes.

“These are simply automobiles that may be in non-public houses, on a farm or issues like that, the place I had entry to these kind of machines, and I'd simply use them for enjoyable with my cousins and my mates on the weekends.”

Her curiosity in motor automobiles solidified when her household moved to the UK, the place she went to highschool and, ultimately, faculty.

“I used to be very fortunate to journey regularly with my mother and father,” she recollects. “We used to go to kart tracks in England and that was actually enjoyable.”

One other door that opened for Akeel within the UK was one at that time firmly closed to her at house – the prospect to drive on the highway – and he or she wasted no time acquiring her driving license, aged 17.

She even admits her selection of vacation spot for her undergraduate research – the College of London’s picturesque Royal Holloway School, on the English capital’s western outskirts – was influenced by the alternatives it introduced to drive.

It was a transfer onto two wheels that set Akeel’s thoughts in the direction of racing.

“After I was 27, I obtained my bike license, and that was quite a lot of enjoyable. So, the bike began to direct me in the direction of the racing world.”

After gaining a grasp’s diploma in Worldwide Enterprise, from Hult College, she moved to Dubai and began using on the Dubai Autodromo racetrack.

“I may see that I used to be actually loving the game and having a great time and a number of the racers inspired me to hitch them, to race the within the nationwide sequence,” says Akeel.

“I went and obtained the checks and the exams carried out for the racing license, after which I obtained a license issued from the Saudi Motor Sports activities Federation. And that’s how I began racing.”

The impetus to modify to cross nation racing got here, fairly actually, as the results of an accident.

In February 2020, at a 600cc Superstock assembly in Bahrain, Akeel misplaced management of her bike and fell.

“I had a ‘low facet’ fall, which implies I fell onto the monitor on the facet that the bike was leaning towards, which is, you realize, the, the lesser and simpler fall.”

The six-feet-one-inch-tall Akeel considers herself lucky.

“I used to be very fortunate. I had some damaged bones in my pelvis, my backbone, however they had been all fractures that might heal naturally. So, I thought of that to be a really fortunate end result and I used to be very relieved and really grateful.”

On the time, the Covid pandemic was starting to precipitate widespread border closures and lockdowns, so Akeel returned house to Jeddah to recuperate.

Whereas resting up she started to think about the attraction of off-road and rally racing, particularly as Saudi Arabia was welcoming the Dakar Rally for the primary time.

“It’s an awesome occasion. It’s worldwide. It hosts lots of people from all around the world, coming in massive numbers, and it’s quite a lot of enjoyable,” she explains.

Akeel started competing within the FIA World Cup for Cross Nation Bajas, a world rally sequence impressed by the eponymous races on Mexico’s Baja peninsula.

“(I needed) to get used to the thought of being in numerous conditions, totally different terrain, which Dakar provides you, throughout 9,000 kilometers of Saudi Arabia and it’s truly very numerous,” she says.

“So, after I went to the cross-country Baja World Cup, I had two rounds within the Center East and three in Europe and every of these areas was a very totally different approach of driving.

“So, I discovered, for instance, it was muddy in Italy, and there was quite a lot of gravel and water in Hungary. There have been quite a lot of bumpy, rocky elements within the Center East with sand, with dunes. In order that simply obtained my thoughts ready for selection and to have the ability to have interaction with the unknown.”

Being prepared for the sudden is a key function of preparation for the Dakar, Akeel says.

“If in case you have this mentality that something can occur at any second and also you anticipate issues to continuously evolve, then you definately could be properly ready mentally,” she explains.

“After which bodily, that’s a unique story: so, I've my exercise routine and I eat properly and sleep properly.”

With girls solely just lately capable of drive on the highway in Saudi Arabia, Akeel is conscious that she might be seen as a task mannequin by her countrywomen, however she is philosophical about her personal path and what she may characterize to others.

“I used to be very fortunate to get my license after I was 17 and I had a head begin on constructing that response time and people abilities and driving abilities,” she says.

“I feel it’s vital to look at folks do it as a result of then you definately perceive that it's doable for you, whoever you might be, to get into the game.

“I imply, I bear in mind after I was becoming a member of the primary race, I didn’t suppose twice about … what number of girls had carried out this? Had they been from Saudi? Not Saudi? I didn’t suppose an excessive amount of about that as a result of the foundations say I could be there.

“You understand, I've each proper to be there. I've my license. I belong right here. I've my automobile, I've my gear, I've my helmet. You understand, so I meet the entire necessities. I've a full set of rights of belonging within the sport and that was what I wanted.”

In her first try on the Dakar, Akeel completed a creditable eighth in her class within the 2022 race, but it surely may have been even higher.

“We had been sixth (within the T3 class), which I used to be very proud of, being a primary timer,” mentioned Akeel. “However on the seventh day I had an issue with the turbo and the automobile had a bit much less energy. I began to make use of the brakes much less and carry momentum by way of the turns. However meaning extra danger.

“(My co-driver) mentioned, ‘you realize, for those who don’t cease what you’re doing, you’re gonna have an issue’. However I ignored him, and I ended up turning a nook and was caught off guard by a rock and hit the brakes actually shortly, and the affect broke the entrance of the automobile.

The error value Akeel 4 hours and several other locations.

“I reacted in an emotional approach, and I didn’t make the proper name,” she admits. “Dakar is a race that forces you to take a look at your self and your choices. And after that, I did change the best way I drove.”

Akeel’s story has confirmed enticing to main sponsors, together with the likes of Toyota and Canadian off-road specialist, Can-Am, which supplied her with the all-important automobile.

“Dania isn’t afraid to get in there and compete with the boys in a male-dominated sport,” mentioned Anne-Marie LaBerge, Chief Advertising and marketing Officer at BRP, which owns Can-Am, of Akeel.

“She helps to create a path for girls and future generations of younger girls to comply with in Saudi Arabia, equally to what Molly Taylor is doing in Australia, Cristina Gutierrez is doing in Spain, and Cory Weller is doing in america.

“These are girls making a path for different girls to push their limits and get within the sport, regardless of the guidelines are.”

As for the challenges of Dakar itself, Akeel sees it as a studying expertise, but additionally primarily as enjoyable.

“Dakar jogs my memory of summer season camp,” she says. “You understand, daily we get up, we get our gear on and we simply drive for 400 plus kilometers. It’s the best two weeks.

“After I get within the automobile, it’s me and the co-driver and the automobile and the monitor. That’s it. That’s all that exists. Nothing else exists.”