Norberto Benavides and the drama of being the father of Dakar riders: “The day they tell me they no longer race, I will be happier”

The field undergoes a transformation as the sun changes position in the middle of the desert. An empty rectangle, bordered by fences, begins to fill as trucks and assistance arrive, while competitors accelerate halfway through the race. Dakar.

The caravan of heavy transport, vans and all types of camper They travel along Saudi roads and highways until they reach the camp, which takes on color and life just after mid-morning.

There, riding a bicycle, he walked Norberto Benavidesarrived last Friday at Saudi Arabia to accompany their children, the true protagonists of the Dakar. Kevinfor being the last winner of the most extreme race on the planet, and Lucianocurrent world champion of the specialty.

Norberto was a motorcycle racer. I ran inside enduro, and has always been linked to the world of two wheels. As an athlete, as an athlete, as a businessman and trader in Salta. The passion for vertigo and speed was passed on to his children, who learned very well and brought Argentina to the top in the off-road specialty.

“Kevin was small and I made him compete. I remember there was a lazy guy who was beating everyone and Kevin was right behind him. I told him that he had to pass him in the corners, that’s where races are won. That he had to dare to put the rear wheel into the rope, to overcome it, or jump from the outside, but that he should not follow it. And Kevin, after listening to me, did. And he overcame it and started winning. “No one stopped him,” Norberto recalls at the main entrance to the camp. Al Dawadimiat the geographic center of Saudi Arabia, awaiting her children.

“Luciano started racing when he was younger. At five years old he was already running. He didn’t look out of place despite his young age, and obviously he immediately showed that he has a lot of speed for motorbikes,” said the man from Salta.

Time passed and the boys grew up. Not only in terms of age, given that Kevin is 35 years old and Luciano is 28, but they have also made their family great, which dominates the activity in the world order, with the Dakar and the world title W2RC.

But Norberto underlines that there are more important aspects than the results, even if he still doesn’t seem to appreciate everything his children have achieved: “The truth is that today I can’t believe it. It’s very difficult to enter this environment, to fight against the best. Then it’s more complex to get to the front. Not to mention that one is a Dakar winner and the other is a world champion. And they’re both my kids, it’s amazing. I still think about it and I can’t believe this is happening.”

Despite the titles, Norberto wore a brand new team shirt KTMteam where Kevin runs (Luciano is in Husqvarnaalso belonging to the Austrian group), he confessed Clarion: “I am happy in life with their achievements. But the day they tell me they don’t run anymore, I will be happier. But the truth is, I’m scared to death (laughs). What do you want me to say? You suffer a lot. The fact that he was a pilot is worse, because you know what can happen. When we raced the Enduro we came fourth by chance. Here they go deep into the whole stage, so it scares me a lot.

The dialogue appeared to be a distraction for Don Benavides, who admitted that he was looking for distractions as his children accelerated at full speed in unfamiliar terrain, where the danger increases in an activity, like all motor sports, that carries its own risks: “ While they are running on stage, I pray to God. Many believe that I am careful about the timing, that I am aware of each stage. “I don’t care about anything, I just want them to arrive safely.”

After a while the Benavides brothers arrived together. Kevin was second, 3 minutes and 12 seconds behind the Chilean Ignacio Cornejo (Honda), while Luciano finished third. However, the defender of the 2023 Dakar victory is now in 5th place, 21m39s from the top of the general classification, while Luciano remains 8th, 43m12s away (with the 15-minute penalty included for the engine change).

The riders arrived exhausted from the long route of the 7th stage, with 873 kilometers. “We woke up at 3:30 and before 5 we went out, at night, to run on stage,” said Kevin, who just wanted to rest. Diego Llanos it is 23°, Santiago Rostan30th e Santiago Urquía75°.

On quadricycles, Manuel Andújar had won the cap, but then received a 15 minute penalty for failing to pass a crossing point and now French Alex Giroud He is only 6 minutes behind the Argentine rider, the leader.

In the automotive world, it looks like the race will go head-to-head with two former world rally champions: Carlos Sainz (Audi) e Sebastiano Loeb (Prodrive), who won the stage, reducing the gap in the general classification to 19 minutes compared to the Spaniard. The Mendoza Juan Cruz Yacopini It is in 24th place in the rankings.

The Argentine representation suffered a twist with the breakdown of the differential of the Bull of Cordoba Nicola Cavigliassowhich definitively delayed him to the point of marginalizing him from any fight in the category Challengerwhich in the last few hours suffered the exclusion of the Polish Goczal family, over which it dominated at will, but the unauthorized use of a carbon clutch in their vehicles was noted.

The activity will continue on Monday, with the eighth stage, with the connection between the Al Dawadimi and Ha’il fields, on a route of 678 kilometres, of which 458 are special.