Monster Energy Honda Team | The Calling
The Calling takes us where we have never been before. Grabbing unique bivouac access and spinning the story of the Monster Energy Honda Team as they embark on the world's toughest rally race, we go behind the scenes with the men for whom the Dakar is their destiny.
Grabbing unique bivouac access and spinning the story of the Monster Energy Honda Team as they embark on the world's toughest rally race, we go behind the scenes with the men for whom the Dakar is their destiny.
From Dakar to day one, the calling comes young, unwarranted and unforeseen, steering riders’ lives onto snaking routes. Next bend, the Dakar Rally 2024 and Saudi’s inimitable dunescapes.
Hear from Ricky Brabec, José Ignacio “Nacho” Cornejo, Skyler Howes, Pablo Quintanilla, Tosha Schareina, and Adrien Van Beveren as we seek to delve deeper into the mindset of the men who will soon take on the world’s toughest rally.
“I have video and cassette recordings from when I was four or five years old of my sister asking, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I said a motorcycle rider. I knew what I wanted to do from the moment I was able to swing a leg over a motorcycle,” said Skyler Howes.
For Pablo Quintanilla, the calling came young; “When I was five or six I started because of my big brothers. We went to see a motocross race in Chile, and for sure I loved it. One Christmas my dad gave us a bike and immediately we started racing.”
Polished soundbites canned, listen to dusty accounts of far from glamorous 14-hour days on the bike and the good ol’ ragtag days of privateer hustle. The full Monster Energy Honda Team, a couple of cameras, and a candid look at what on earth it takes to compete in the rough and recondite world of rally raid.
“Anyone who says that the Dakar Rally isn’t hard is lying. Dakar is the number one place that will beat you to your knees. Everything they can possibly throw at you, they will,” - Skyler Howes
“We don’t really stop because after Dakar we’re starting the World Championships. We’re full gas with training, testing, and racing. The whole year it’s pretty much full gas,” - Pablo Quintanilla
On knees and clawing at the finish line, no amount of preparation or bravado will prepare riders for the desert. Even for those who’ve been heading this way since infancy.
“My mum and dad tell me that my third word was Moto. Papa, Mama, Moto,” - Adrien Van Beveren
First words aside, here’s the Dakar in just five: “Hard, long, mental, physical, and more hard,” - Tosha Schareina
Watch The Calling ahead of the 2024 Dakar Rally and find out why some hellish years fewer than half of entrants actually finish the damn misadventure.