What's Rally Racing and Why do People Love it? ADVMoto Live! #32

Adventure Motorcycle (ADVMoto) Radio

In this episode of ADVMoto Live, Kyle McCoy and David Pearson from Team American Rally Originals (ARO) discuss their ambitious mission to become the

Key takeaways

The Malle Moto class is 'unsupported,' meaning riders cannot have outside mechanical assistance at the end of each day.
Team ARO is specifically targeting a historic milestone as the first American group to complete this specific Dakar class.
Rally racing requires a unique skill set combining high-speed riding with complex navigation using road books and compasses.
The logistics and costs for competing in the Dakar Rally can range between $80,000 and $100,000.
Training for rally racing often involves participating in regional events like the Sonora Rally or the COTA Rally in the US.

Main topics

Dakar Rally Malle Moto class
Team American Rally Originals mission
Rally racing navigation and strategy

Notable quotes

Doing the Dakar Malle Moto style is kind of like doing the Iditarod without a dog sled.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an inspiring call to action for adventure riders

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:11) Well, good evening everyone and welcome to AVMoto Live number 32 American Rally Originals due to car. What's up with rally racing? Why is it the ultimate off-road competition? And we'll talk with a team of US riders that are setting out to tackle one of the hardest races in the world and one of the most difficult classes, Malle Moto. Who are they? Why are they doing this? And what can we do to help? All that on tonight's AVMoto Live. Speaker 2 (0:47) First, I want to give a quick announcement to the Wyoming BDR guys. If you remember last show, we had the folks from BDR here. We talked about their new route, which looks like a killer route. But we hope that you will join us. We'd like to invite you for ADVMoto's Wyoming BDR film screening. If you are in the Mid-Atlantic area, it's going to be at the Lost Rhino Brewery in Ashburn, Virginia on Friday, February 25th, starting at around 7 p.m. If anyone is around... Please come hang out, watch the film, meet some fellow writers, and register at the link in the description. And we've got over a thousand dollars in prizes from Climb. DC Dirt Camp is going to be doing some training, offering some free training. Motion Pro's got some sick tools and a cool bag from Turkana Gear. So we hope to see everyone there. But now on with the show. All right. It's a nice show. Very special to me because it hits the milestones that had never really been done before. But we have a special focus on rally racing at ADV Moto. We believe in the stories and the dedication that a lot of the riders have to prepare, suffer, and kind of go through in order to even make it to the event. And we have some very special guests tonight. You know, rally racing is one of the greatest forms of motorsport competition ever. I truly believe that. And whether you're, you know, solo on a bike, or you're teamed up in a truck you know the challenge of the terrain the endurance the navigation really tests both mind and body for everybody involved even the crew you know in the history of dakar apparently no americans have finished the mali moto class to date but team american rally originals is setting out to change that in the 2023 dakar what's the appeal of rally racing why is the mali moto so difficult and are these dudes crazy enough to pull this off everyone please welcome kyle mccoy and david pearson how's it going guys Nice to see you. How are you? All right. Staying alive over here. Do you guys, of course, get the applaud track? All right. So thanks for coming on the show tonight. Can you just kick off with where are you guys from and what's your background? How did you guys get into riding? Kyle, you want to start? Kyle's been on the show before, so you might recognize him. Kyle, you want to start? Speaker 3 (3:15) Sure, yeah. Well, thanks, Carl. So I am based in Seattle, Washington, still obviously live here. I've been here 15 years now, grew up in the Midwest. Relative to David, I'm new to the sport. I've been riding motorcycles about 10 years, so not that long, and rally probably seven or eight years of that. I'm not a racer by background, so that doesn't come naturally to me, but I was in the Army, did a lot of time in the Army. the navigation aspect comes naturally and also was a pretty competitive endurance runner in a prior life and traveled all around the world and ran so and also distances sort of kilometers and the metric system comes pretty naturally to me so that's how you know i got started with in terms of just getting really into rally i started with the baja rally sonora rally some sort of club you know group rides in america and then went to africa eco race and finish Dakar in a supported that it is in 2020. And so that's kind of my background. Speaker 1 (4:23) Right on. And David? Kyle doesn't do justice to some of the things he's accomplished in his background. Like I always joke, if you read our press release, I said doing the Dakar Malle Moto style is kind of like doing the Iditarod without a dog sled. And I was joking and he's like, well, I ran the Iditarod without a dog sled. of dogs that like, I'm like a backpack and you tent it. He's like, I totally ran the Iditarod. I'm like, who the hell runs the Iditarod? Kyle's done some pretty amazing runs in his world. And hi, I've been in motorcycles since I was 14. I'm kind of a crazy immigrant from Canada that lives in the States these days a little nomadically. And right now I'm down in Arizona. I'm actually secretly in Utah right now riding with Skyler Howes and Mason Jones. So I'm playing around with some of those top Dakar guys, which is a really cool experience to have. But I got into dirt bikes in my late 20s and got into rally, got into racing, enduros and nationals, air scrambles. And that led me to do some big desert races. I've done the Vegas Torino a couple of times, the Baja 1000. And then got, you know, I got into the industry, Carl. You know what it's like when you get into the industry, you don't get to ride so much. And so then I got into selling motorcycles and working in dealerships for a bunch of years. And then I got back into racing and I found my way into rally about five years ago and I got hooked. I just totally after the first one, I'm like, that was awesome. I'm like, I get to use my brain and my body and I get to move fast and I can actually compete with some guys, you know, just in a navigation level is was pretty cool for me. So this is this is a pretty neat thing we do. That's cool. And the bikes are sick. Speaker 2 (6:04) And the bikes are sick. Let's just be straight about that. Now, you know, a lot of the folks in the U.S., you know, we don't really know much about the riding scene in Canada. What's it like in the off-road, you know, like competitive scene over there? I mean, you can talk about motocross or whatever, or if there's a strong rally scene there. I think I would love to know about it. Speaker 1 (6:27) We joke every time we go to the Sonora and the Baja Rally at how many Canadians showed up to do it. I was, last weekend I was in the Sonoran Desert doing navigation training prior to the Sonora Rally. They put on a class and, you know, there were 24 of us in the class. Eight of them were Canadians. And so in British Columbia, Alberta, it's just got big open expanse and stuff that you can really do rally with. So there's a... There's certainly a small group of guys that are pretty passionate about it, but I mean, you only get to do it like two months out of the year. The rest of you are in tundra, you know? Oh, Speaker 2 (7:05) yeah, Speaker 1 (7:05) that's true. Speaker 2 (7:06) And I guess from time to time, Speaker 1 (7:07) right, the Dakar route Speaker 2 (7:08) changes countries and regions of the earth and terrain, right? So I guess the native advantage of being from an area, let's say like the American Southwest, right, which I've heard is extremely similar to the sand. Right. Like in Saudi Arabia, it makes more sense to train out there if it's similar. Right. But training in Canada be more maybe like rallies in Eastern Europe or something like that or like terrain wise. Yeah, Speaker 1 (7:34) I'm not sure I can answer that question. You know, I moved to the States when I was pretty young and wasn't really I was on street bikes in Canada and I didn't get on a dirt bike. So I got in the United States. So I just it's hard to imagine. I rode in B.C. earlier this year and they definitely have a passion for it. But the weather and the efforts there are just, you know, you think we're limited sometimes. And they're just significantly more limited. I mean, Kyle is in Washington. I'm not sure how many years of days of riding you get in Washington State, Kyle. But, you know, I'm always impressed to see you ride when you come down. Like, how many days have you ridden? He's like, three. You know, and he goes. Yeah, well, Kyle's Speaker 2 (8:12) a natural at it, I suppose. Because I know Kyle, you do a lot of the running, right? You do a lot of running. Speaker 3 (8:19) Yeah, I did a lot of running. I joke around. I'm like Skylar Howes, Bray Beck, Andrew Short, Mason Klein, these guys. That was me in running. That is definitely not me in this sport. I'm more of the middle of the pack guy. But I was a pretty top competitor in terms of ultra marathons all around the world. Traveled to Antarctica, China, Namibia, you name it. I was sort of there. And that came naturally. But about 2017, I started, surprise, surprise, having some issues with my knees and back and decided that it's time to shift a little. And so got in. And I thought, I love to travel. I love to see the world. I love to meet interesting people. And the suspension, it turns out, on those bikes is pretty good for the old knees and back. So that took the place of it. And the distances, you know, it's really long distances, I tell people, which is, and the navigation. That's what. levels to some extent levels the playing field for a guy like me that doesn't have the skills of the natural riding ability of a guy like David or frankly other guys on our team. And that's the part I love about it. Speaker 2 (9:27) Right on. You know, in running, and I used to run a little bit when I was in high school too, like, you know, there was your sprint runners and then there was your endurance runners, right? You know what I mean? And there's a big mentality between the two. Do you see any parallels in that in the motorcycle world? Speaker 3 (9:42) Absolutely. That's the best part, especially in rally racing, because, you know, we'll see, and David knows this really well, we'll see a new, a really fast guy who comes from motocross or even national heron hounds. And then they'll come out to rally, not really fully grasping the navigation part and they will just blast by. And then, you know, they make a wrong turn and I'll sort of putt by and keep going and then blast by again. And then we sort of flip flop back and forth. And that's. the best, frankly, it's the best part of the sport. But to your point, yes, there's definitely a sprint. There's a mixture between being able to go fast and you can only go as fast as you can navigate. And that's the best part of the sport. Speaker 2 (10:22) Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And that's one of the reasons I love it. So, all right, let's take a step back. Let's go to the mile high view and, you know, let's answer the question for those that might not be really familiar with it. And that is, you know, what is rally racing and how is it? different from other types of off-road racing in the United States or North America in general? Speaker 1 (10:42) Go ahead, David. Oh, I mean, it's a, there's a huge, big difference. And maybe, you know, most off-road riding that happens right now, desert races, Bajas, the Vegas Torino 500s, the score series stuff. You start on a course, that course is clearly well-marked. Sometimes you even get to pre-ride the course and then you get to compete in it. Rally is a completely different animal in the sense that you show up to the starting grid and fundamentally you get handed the course on a road book. And then you are also provided a compass and an odometer. And you have to navigate through whatever directions they give you and hit key points along the route to justify your survival of this event and finish. And so there is a constant challenge with the strategy of who the first people are out and breaking trail. For the most part, the exciting thing for me, quite honestly, is that, you know, we'll start the course out and it'll be on a nice piece of beautiful two-track trail. And then promoter, the author of the road book, will take a ride and we'll be on like a cow trail, you know, a donkey run. And then after that, he'll say, take another ride. 87 degrees and go that way for three kilometers and there's no trail at all. And it's got ravines and mountains and sand dunes and shit that you just can't even imagine. And you have to navigate in and around and through that and still hit critical points along the race or you suffer time and penalties that hurt your overall standings. And it doesn't happen in a day. It happens in five, six, eight, 15 days if you go to the Dakar. Speaker 2 (12:28) Right on, right on. Yeah, I mean, I can remember