A first-place international title is returning home to the High Desert with UTV racer Max Eddy Jr.
After a grueling, dust-drenched 13 days of racing, the Barstow local and his teammate, Brock Heger, a 26-year-old professional off-road racer from El Centro, are officially back-to-back champions of the international Dakar Rally.
The race, which traversed Saudi Arabia’s dunes and backcountry terrain this year, had a registered 433 dirt bike, UTV and car racers battling head-to-head for a podium finish at the Jan. 21 closing ceremony.
The High Desert Polaris team won six of 13 UTV stages and finished first overall in the side-by-side vehicle class, over an hour ahead of the second-place racers.
“Another Dakar Rally win adds to the résumé, but the story runs deeper than one event,” Score International Journal posted of the hometown Polaris win online. “This is sustained excellence in UTV racing at the highest level, earned over years in the dust.”
Max Jr., 43, has been racing UTVs as part of the Polaris Factory RZR team for five years.
Riding and racing are prevalent in the Eddy family, who have lived in Barstow for five generations and ridden dirt bikes for at least four. Max Eddy Sr. was a District 37 Regional Champion, and Max Jr. is a five-time champion of the Baja 1,000 dirt bike race.
Max Sr. told the Daily Press in a previous interview that his son has competed in rallies all around the world. In fact, this is his fourth or fifth trip to Saudi Arabia for the Dakar Rally.
“I hope he comes home healthy, and I hope he has fun,” Max Sr. said of his son. “He’s already gone past the threshold of making me proud.”
Another racer close to home clinched a second-place title.
Sara Price of Mohave Valley, just 150 miles east of Barstow, crossed the finish line second for the car division of the race. “The raw emotion crossing the Dakar Rally finish line… Every kilometer tested us, and Sean Berriman and I embraced every moment of the journey and had one heck of a good time,” Price wrote online of her title.
This was Price’s first Dakar podium. Now, Price is transitioning from the land to the sea. She is still in Saudi Arabia racing in the E1 Series powerboat race before she travels back to the west coast and straight to the King of the Hammers competition in Johnson Valley.
McKenna is a reporter for the Daily Press. She can be reached at mmobley@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Barstow local takes home first place prize from Saudi Arabia race
Reporting by McKenna Mobley, Victorville Daily Press / Victorville Daily Press
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