From finishing 168th to working my way up to 112th place (yes, that’s my actual progress), I’ve learned that rally racing isn’t just for the elite few who can afford factory teams. Regular riders can get into rally racing without losing their savings or sanity – because behind every stunning rally highlight reel, every perfectly timed drone shot of riders cresting desert dunes, and every inspirational finish line celebration, there’s a less glamorous truth: most of us have absolutely no business being out there.

You might recognize the type — riders who caught the rally bug watching Dakar coverage from our couches, convinced ourselves that our adventure riding skills translate directly to competitive racing, and somehow ended up at a starting line wondering what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into.

I’m one of them. Having survived the Hellas Rally Raid, Dinaric Rally, Hispania Rally, and Sardinia Rally among others, I’ve learned that racing is not just for the pros. It’s also for regular people with questionable judgment and an unhealthy tolerance for suffering.

The Leap from Spectator to Sufferer

Having caught the rally bug while chasing Rally Dakar 2019 on my beat-up DR650 in Peru, I did what any sane motorcyclist would: shipped the aforementioned DR to Europe and entered my first rally race: the Hellas Rally Raid. I picked their Lite class which allowed amateur riders on any bikes ranging from 450 to 1200cc; the Lite riders followed 70% of the rally route, the navigation was the same (though GPS was allowed in addition to or in place of roadbook), and the race took seven days covering over 2,000 kilometers across rocky Greek mountain terrain.

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Did I have any business being there? Absolutely not — but I survived. While my rankings were laughable (I was, literally, at the very back of the pack), those seven days were unforgettable: it taught me more about endurance and off-road riding than years spent traveling, it allowed me to push my limits in a semi-controlled environment, learn from more experienced riders, and test my mettle.

What I did to prepare was embarrassingly minimal:

• Attended a three-day rally navigation event in Portugal beforehand to learn the roadbook ropes.
• Borrowed a simple, handlebar-mounted roadbook navigation setup from a fellow rider.
• Put a good set of off-road tires on my bike.

That’s it. No fancy suspension upgrades, no serious training, no team of mechanics helping me at the Hellas bivouac – just me, my old DR650, and a lot of possibly misplaced stubbornness that got me across that finish line.

Setting Realistic Expectations (Or: Why Last Place Is Still a Place)

The lesson? For your first rally race, you don’t necessarily need a KTM 450 Rally Replica; you just need a reliable working dirt bike that can handle distance, gnarly terrain, and long hours with at least a 150km (93 miles) fuel range. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just well-maintained – unless you’re aiming for a podium.

Which brings me to deciding on the most important matter first: your goal. Decide whether you’re entering a rally race to compete and rank well, or to simply have a great time and finish. These are two very different things: if it’s your first attempt and, like me, you’re just a rally-curious adventure rider, don’t sweat the rankings. For me, it didn’t matter whether I placed 78th or 112th – I knew I wouldn’t achieve any substantial sporting result, but I simply wanted to experience a race and see if I could finish it.

However, if rankings are important to you, there’s another approach. Entering a seven-day race as my first rally definitely wasn’t a smart choice; the good news is, there are plenty of shorter, more doable events out there allowing you to build experience and skills in a more sustainable way. A three or five-day rally race is plenty if it’s your first one: you’ll test the waters, learn a ton, and be better prepared for your next, longer, more challenging race.

The Bike Reality Check

Have money? Hire a bike and a mechanic with one of the professional assistance teams – it’ll save you time, energy, and a headache or two. Don’t have a big budget? Go at it alone – riding a familiar bike is actually a bonus, and if it’s a well-serviced, reliable beast you can look after yourself, you’ll be more than OK.

When it comes to navigation, the roadbook may look complex, but it’s actually surprisingly easy once you get the hang of it. Plus, a roadbook gives you more information on what’s ahead – which allows you to plan your strategy better. Instead of a simple GPS line, a roadbook gives you indications of terrain, obstacles, and challenges ahead so you can plan your speed and your attack tactics accordingly.

However, most European rally races along with Baja Rally in Baja California, Mexico, allow you to enter the Adventure or amateur class where GPS is allowed. My advice? Run both roadbook and GPS simultaneously: that way, you’ll learn to navigate by roadbook but won’t get hopelessly lost.

Where to learn roadbook navigation? You’ve got options: rally schools, online tutorials, or – and this is allegedly how Dakar star Matthias Walkner mastered it – rally video games. The point is, there are plenty of ways to get started.

The Skills That Actually Matter

Watching those awe-inspiring videos from the Dakar, you might think all rally races are about impossibly tall dunes, gnarly tracks, and boulder-littered riverbeds. Not necessarily: as the rally racing world expands, there are more and more amateur-friendly races where superhuman riding skills aren’t necessary. Some races, like Sardinia Rally in Italy, the Hellas Rally Enduro Cup, and Baja Rally are essentially adventure riding, just at faster speeds. You don’t need to be a Romaniacs champion to enter a rally race – you just need decent enough off-road skills and a lot of endurance.

Speaking of which, that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned in my three years of wandering Europe and racing in different rallies from Hispania to Dinaric: the thing that gets you across the finish line isn’t crazy speeds, incredible skills, or Swiss-like precision when it comes to navigation (though that certainly doesn’t hurt). The most useful skill is pure, bloody-minded endurance and refusing to give up – especially when every fiber of your being is screaming at you to quit.

Picture this: you’ve missed a waypoint twice and you’re not sure where you are. You’ve been in the saddle for 8 hours and still have 80 kilometers to go. You’re stuck in a mangled, muddy track that turns out to be the wrong damn track entirely. It’s Day Five, every muscle in your body is staging a revolt, and when you finally make it back, locate some food, and get out of your gear, you realize it’s 1 am at the bivouac but you still need to replace two broken spokes before you can even think about sleep.

Rally racing is the ultimate long game – a test of whether you can show up fresh every morning, regardless of sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and the growing certainty that you’ve lost your mind. It’s about getting back on that bike and continuing on, one more mile, one more day, until you cross that finish line.

The Beautiful Brutality Of It All

Whether you’re aiming for a serious desert race or a more amateur-friendly rally in Europe or North America, don’t expect anything to be easy. It’s overwhelming, especially as faster riders overtake you, you crash in a riverbed, you get lost, dehydrated, earn your fifth bruise of the day, tear a muscle or fracture a bone (I’ve done both), when the marathon stage seems endless or the weather decides to throw a storm at you as you’re struggling across yet another mountain pass. Chances are, you’ll damage both your bike and your ego, and there will be times when you’re questioning every single life choice that led you here.

So why do it?

Because every once in a while, you’ll also get into that magical feeling of flow where suddenly, you become one with the bike making split-second decisions unconsciously, covering mile after mile of rocky tracks or desert landscape as the time stands still and the world falls away; nothing exists in those moments but you and your bike in perfect sync.

Or those moments at the bivouac where riders instantly become a family, competing on the special stages but coming together at the camp to help each other out and share chain oil and advice. Or that feeling when you realize that you’ve just accomplished something extraordinary despite being a very ordinary rider on a lowly DR650.

The Truth About Regular People and Extraordinary Things

Rally racing is dangerous, challenging, and sometimes, straight up insane but it’s also where the magic happens, where you truly test your limits, and where you find out what’s really possible. It strips away all pretense and reveals a simple truth: ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they’re too stubborn to quit.

My progression from dead last to merely terrible wasn’t about suddenly becoming a pro rider (though I did improve). It was about learning that finishing 168th out of 220 riders isn’t failure – it’s success with a different scoreboard. The riders finishing in the top ten are playing a completely different game than the rest of us. They’re athletes, professionals, or seriously dedicated amateurs who’ve been doing this for years.

The rest of us? We’re playing the game of “can I finish this thing without dying or going bankrupt?” And if you ask me, that’s a perfectly valid game to play.

So if you’re sitting there wondering whether you have what it takes to enter a rally, stop wondering. You probably don’t have what it takes – none of us did when we started. But you’ll develop what it takes along the way, one mile, one stage, one rally at a time. You’ll learn that getting lost teaches you more about navigation than perfect route-following ever could. You’ll discover that the bivouac culture turns competitors into family. You’ll find out that your brain’s very reasonable arguments for quitting can be defeated by the simple mantra of “just one more mile.”

And who knows? Maybe I’ll see you at the back of the pack, where the real adventure happens and the best stories are born. Just remember: pack twice as much water and snacks as you think you need, embrace the chaos, and know that finishing is its own victory.

Photos by Actiongraphers and Egle Gerulaityte