American Mason Klein To Race Dakar On Kove’s New Rally Weapon
The rising star is ready to take things to the next-level with Kove’s support.
Two fresh and ambitious World Rally Raid forces are merging their powers for the 2024 Dakar, as American Mason Klein announces he will be piloting Kove Moto’s new Dakar weapon – the 450 Rally EX.
This year’s Dakar was such a nail-biter. We saw the lead being juggled between top pro riders right up to the end when Kevin Benavides nudged out teammate Toby Price by a whisper-thin 43 seconds for the win. KTM celebrated its 19th title, while newcomer, China’s Kove Moto, surprised many skeptics when all three of its unproven factory rally bikes completed the world’s toughest off-road race.
There were crashes galore, taking out fan favorites like Joan Barreda and Matthias Walkner, but one of the hardest things to watch might have been the undoing of young American rider Mason Klein. At the previous Dakar he had come away a prodigy, the rookie privateer who shook things up with a 9th place overall finish at just 20 years of age. He went on that year to win the Rally2 W2RC championship and earn his RallyGP stripes for 2023.
At the 2023 Dakar Mason continued to impress as a privateer with BAS World KTM Racing Team, setting a blistering pace out of the gate at Dakar and even taking the Stage 2 win. But by Stage 9 things began to unravel for the young rider after multiple crashes and injuries which eventually caused him to bow out ahead of Stage 13. “[This] year had its ups and downs for me – first with a stage win and then a pretty gnarly head injury,” he explained in a social media post.
Post Dakar, we heard little about Klein as he recovered from his injuries while continuing his grass-roots efforts to raise enough money to stay in the game. He says he wasn’t at all sure he would make it back to Dakar for a third time, that is, until he began talks with a similarly motivated newcomer to World Rally Raid, Kove Moto. And last week, the pairing became official.
Interestingly, the merging of Kove and Klein forces will be a side act to Kove’s Factory team, with the now 22-year-old Californian participating as a RallyGP privateer.
“Kove is pleased to support Mason and his Klein Off-Road Racing Team at Dakar,” an announcement from Kove Moto reads. “Mason will ride the new 2024 Kove 450 Rally EX and will have access to the same tools and parts as the Factory Team, but he will also have the added flexibility and comfort of his own program.”
This is of course great news for ambitious Kove Moto, which just unveiled a wildly overhauled Dakar entry in its all-new 450 Rally EX at Milan’s EICMA. It says this “split approach” with Klein riding as a RallyGP privateer will “allow the new machine to be developed simultaneously with two methodologies.” It also allows Kove a wildcard into the event’s coveted top class.
The all-new bike features a completely new engine and chassis and is promised to be more powerful, more maneuverable and lighter than the machine that debuted at the last Dakar, and Klein has already been to Europe to feel it out, reporting that “the bike is ready to go.”
Indeed a Kove-mounted Klein appears not only ready to go, but hungry for a win. “I really feel like I wouldn’t go there if I wasn’t there to win. Top 10 is the easy part; we already did that. My mom says “Finish,” but last time I told my mom I wanted Top 10 and we got it, so this time I’m saying I want to win…that’s the goal.”
In addition, Kove Moto USA says it will do what it can to support Klein’s Dakar efforts and will be shipping him a current model 450 Rally Pro as well as the company’s all-new motocross MX250 so the Dakar hopeful can “get some cross-training in.”
Winning at Dakar is also Kove Moto’s goal, though CEO Zhang Xue has a more measured plan. This year his hope was for his three 450 Rally Pro entries to finish, and finish they did. In 2024 he’s reportedly hoping for a Top 20 finish from his factory team, followed by a Top 10 in 2025, a podium finish in 2026 and in 2027, the win.
With the world’s toughest off-road rally set to pop on January 5th Mason Klein is currently a very busy boy. “Lots to do to get this program together as a privateer,” he said. “Dakar is a lot of preparation, skill and a healthy dose of good luck. One day the stars will align for me. My goal is to win Dakar.”
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I’m Big fan of young Mason K and Kove too now, for their support of Mason. Excellent rider choice Kove!
I previously said ” Hard pass” to Move, now I’ll say ” You have my attention!” 🙂
*Kove, not Move