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What happened in the world of Rally GP motorcycle racing<br />
this past month was akin to a world champion boxer’s sparring<br />
partner taking the title.<br />
Monster Energy/Hero Motosports’ Aaron Mare, a last-minute<br />
addition to fill in for the team at the 2024 FIM World Rally-Raid<br />
Championship’s second round – the 33rd running of the Abu<br />
Dhabi Desert Challenge – was supposed to be a support racer<br />
for Monster Energy/Hero Motosports’ No. 1 guy, ’24 Dakar Rally<br />
runner-up Ross Branch.<br />
Mare, a fellow South African countryman of Branch, was cool<br />
with his role. Filling in for Sebastian Buhler, who was injured at<br />
Dakar, Mare, who resides and rides in Abu Dhabi, would help<br />
insure that Branch would come away from the ADDC with as<br />
many points as possible – giving him the overall FIM World Rally-<br />
Raid Championship overall Rally GP class points lead when all<br />
was said and done.<br />
However… in the world of motorsports the best laid plans can<br />
go awry in an instant. And that’s exactly what happened after<br />
Branch, who won the event’s opening Prologue round, suffered a<br />
mechanical failure in Stage 1 – and was never able to recover.<br />
With that Mare took the reins of the Monster Energy/Hero<br />
Motosports Rally 450 and cracked the throttle – two stage wins<br />
(#2 & 4), enroute to a five-minute overall ADDC victory over<br />
Poland’s Konrad Dabrowski (DUUST Rally), with Branch clocking<br />
in with a top five (4th) finish.
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