Gnarly, By Definition

The annual Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia is the
longest, toughest motorcycle race on the planet, which made it the perfect place for Honda HRC to shake down its new CRF450RX Rally bike

WORDS: Pat Schutte
PHOTOS: COURTESY HONDA

Preston Campbell, a wide-eyed, enthusiastic Californian with about as clutch a desert racing lineage as one could be born with, was tabbed by the Monster Energy Honda HRC rally team as one of the racers to run its new, crate-to-race masterpiece—the CRF450RX Rally bike. Campbell was tasked with Honda’s opening foray into Dakar’s Rally2 class. According to insiders close to the team, the plan was to track data on the new bike in the most demanding off-road endurance race on the planet, the Dakar Rally, a two-week slog across the remote badlands of Saudi Arabia. As such, results for Campbell were not paramount. Besides, this would be the AMA District 37 racer’s very first Dakar. And, with his dad, desert racing legend and Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame member Johnny Campbell, at his side as a special technical advisor to the Honda HRC rally team, the 27-year-old from the MX hotbed of Murrieta set out on his greatest adventure to date.