It was a long time coming for Sebastian Husseini, but as the engine of his Honda TRX 700 XX quad roared at the starting line of the Dakar Rally 2013, it was just meant to be. The Dubai-based rider has dreamt of the legendary off-road endurance race ever since he could remember, and it seemed like this was really his year as he rode with the Maxxis Super-B GoKobra/SebSports Dakar team and finished in 6th place overall in the quad bike category. The gruelling race had him traversing through sand traps, raging rivers and bushes with thorns as big as nails; in Peru, Argentina and Chile, from January 5th to 20th, so it was a relief to see him up and about at the SebSports HQ with an easy smile.
Congratulations! How does it feel to be back home?
I only started work today. I’ve been gone for almost a whole month because I left Dubai before the New Year. The welcome back was fantastic. All my family and friends surprised me at the airport with big banners and balloons. I had a bit of shock, but it was nice. Knowing that there are so many people supporting you gives you a lot of drive to do better. It’s like flying the flag for the emirates, for your family and team. I’m just catching up on sleep and eating properly. I lost about seven kilos in two weeks. I’m just rebuilding the energy levels and enjoying some food other than pasta.
How did you prepare for such an epic race?
Four or five months before Dakar, I was training heavily. I was in the desert on the bike every weekend and three or four times a week, I was in the gym three times a week too and was eating healthy. I knew it was going to be long in the Dakar, so I prepared here and did long days. I would start at 5:00 a.m., drive to Ras Al Khaimah, then from there through the mountains to Fujairah, and then back to the desert, so I was able to simulate a Dakar day. We practised and spent a lot of time testing the bike to make sure everything was okay. I also trained with a company called International Sports Expertise; they offer a tailor-made solution for athletes in the UAE. They’re one of my sponsors for the Dakar and Fabien Rabeau actually came to South America as a physiotherapist and supported the team.
You started off at 2nd place in the first four stages and then dropped 31st place on the 5th stage, what happened?
Everything was going well at the beginning as I was able to push quite hard from the start and get a good position. Then I had bad luck, my bike gearbox broke. It’s not a problem we’ve ever had before; it was something completely new, so nothing could have been done to avoid it. We were 20 or 30km into the stage when it happened. I tried to repair the gearbox, but I really couldn’t do anything, so I waited for my teammate. He came along and towed me 120km through the rocks and sand. They have this very thin, fine dust there called fesh fesh and it’s like powder. If you stand on it or ride through, you’ll sink down – very, very horrible stuff. At one point, we had to push the bike through the fesh fesh and it took us about two hours to cover 100m. At the last minute, the final motorcycle rider to pass through stopped, gave us the final push and we were able to keep going. We started off at 5:00 a.m. and reached the camp at 11:30 p.m., so we were on the bikes for quite a long time. That night, I was able to get two hours of sleep, had a bit to eat and at five, I was off again. My mechanics changed the engine so I was able to go out and race.
What was your game plan to catch up with standings?
From there on, I rode a little bit faster to get back in front of the pack. I think if I didn’t have any issues I would have finished in the top two positions, but this is how it goes. I felt comfortable on the bike and we had no other problems, so I pushed on every day and eventually caught up. In some of the stages, we went up very high to almost 5,000m and I struggled a little bit with altitude. You’re riding the bike and then all of a sudden you’re falling asleep – you can’t control it. When we dropped back down to regular level, things started to go better, so I started to push a little bit more.
How intense was it out there?
Technically, the riding wasn’t hard, but just the length of everything. For two weeks straight, you wake up at 4:00 a.m., eat something, start riding until five in the afternoon, and then come back to the camp. You have to shower, eat, put your tent up and then make your road book, which is in preparation for the next day, then you to go to the drivers’ briefing. By the time you’re finished, it’s midnight again. That was the challenging part of it – the fact that day after day, they were slowly wearing you down. One day they’d put you in a difficult mountain and the next day you’d go up to high altitude, in the dunes or through a river. They were throwing everything at you and if you weren’t prepared for it, you’d be out.
The biggest enemy there was time. You were literally racing against the clock. A lot of people were not able to do this and that’s why the race ended for them. More than 50 per cent of the people didn’t finish Dakar.
I’m sure you had plenty of safety concerns…
It’s a dangerous sport and every year people die in the Dakar. Some parts of the rally I was thinking, “If I didn’t see that crevice… it’s a 300m drop, I’ll never survive that.” I had a few scary moments, but nothing too bad. Every time you see an accident it’s a wakeup call, and it’s not easy. It takes you a while to get into the rhythm.
What was your mindset throughout the race?
It is a long race, so you try and pace yourself. For the first week, I was quite cautious; you don’t want to push too hard, too early and then have problems. Unfortunately, even though I was being cautious as it was all new for me, I did still meet some problems along the way. The first objective was to finish the race and secondly, to do well. Some days, I was really missing home. After you only have two hours of sleep, wake up to a freezing 5°C and taking an ice-cold shower, you miss sitting on the sofa and watching TV. But once you start riding, you look around the corner and it is such a beautiful place. You really start to appreciate that you’re there.
Coming from the sandpit, do you think that you had an advantage?
A lot of the riders don’t have the same opportunity to test their vehicles in the dunes every day, unlike here in the UAE. A lot of them were breaking and overheating their engines. Whereas we knew exactly what was coming. If your bike can survive it here in the desert, in the middle of summer, it can survive anywhere. As for the bike, it’s the same quad we used in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. We tested it quite a lot, built it exactly like the Dakar bikes, and then sent it to South America. I think it was the right thing to do. It cost us a little bit more money, but we were much better prepared than many teams. The bike was almost scrapped after [laughs], but we’ll rebuild it and use it again next year.
We heard you met your buddy there?
Yeah. On one of the days I was leading the stage, I come around the corner and there was a friend of mine from Dubai who was also racing, James West. He was in the bottom of a ravine, so I stopped, climbed down, helped him push his bike up and he got out. I lost my first place, but it was okay, I’m sure he would’ve done the same thing for me.
What was your best moment in Dakar?
It was when I came over the top of this huge sand dune – it’s 3km high. I rode down it and below were two helicopters flying to give you an idea of just how up high I was. So I was going underneath these helicopters, it was crazy. South America is so beautiful. Riding through all these amazing places, this was the main highlight for me.
The people there are great too. You go to Argentina, and there are thousands of people, a huge amount of spectators, people who spend the whole night there just to see you pass by for few minutes. They were so enthusiastic and supporting everybody, it’s amazing. When you’re riding and thousands of people are cheering you on and shouting your name, you do better. I had two mothers fighting because they wanted me to hold their babies, so while putting petrol in the bike, I held one baby and she took a picture, and then took another baby for another shot [laughs].
What did you take out of this Dakar experience?
You learn so much from an event like this and you meet the worlds’ best out there, so I picked up a lot of knowledge from just being there. Every opportunity I got I tried to take in as much information from all the top riders. You gain a once in a lifetime experience and it’s really worth all of it. Riders go there and we torture ourselves for two weeks, but if you ask us, we will do it all over again; in a heartbeat.
I’m satisfied with 6th place and I think that I’m the first rider from the UAE to finish in the quad bike category, but once you’ve tasted a bit of it, you want more. I think I’ve shown that I have enough speed and endurance, and I’ll be back next year with all this experience. We need to do some fine tuning on the bike and I also need to improve and work on my navigation. I have unfinished business, so I’m going next year and will try to win it.
