You can’t win the rally in the Prologue, but you can lose everything before the race even starts… However, Aussie Daniel Sanders must have missed the memo! “Chuckie” blazed through the sandy section in just 3:01. Perennial Prologue threat and 2024 Rally-Raid Portugal winner Tosha Shareina kept Sanders honest, just one second off the pace while his HRC Monster Energy teammate and Top American kept pace. Ricky Brabec, returning to his Honda CRF450 RALLY for the first time since the Dakar Rally in January, chased Tosha through the slippery conditions to finish just two seconds behind his teammate.
“It was really slick in areas, slicker than I was predicting,” said Brabec of the blistering Prologue pace. “Not a lot of people might know this, but I haven’t really ridden a motorcycle since Dakar, so to go the speed and to push like we did today, it felt cool… but the race is not determined by the Prologue so I’m looking forward to the next five days.” But the weather may rain on Ricky’s parade.
“The wind is coming, the clouds are coming,” he says. “Let’s hope the weather is nice to us. First off, the roads here are a little bit scary, now with the rain and the clouds coming in, it’s going to be muddy and scary, so it’s going to be unpredictable this week. Let’s just try to stay on two wheels and put the skis out when we need to and make it to the finish line.”
Covering just 3.4 kilometers against the clock, the stint at Grândola on St. Patrick’s Day still plays an important role deciding which riders will choose their starting positions for Stage 1 today.
Although he was only 9 seconds behind Brabec in the Prologue, the man in the black cowboy hat Skyler Howes was credited with 8th on the Stage. “It was a super short Prologue and I messed up a couple of corners out there, but I’m happy to get through in one piece and feeling more or less good,” says Howes. “I had a couple of little mess ups in the corners which is what it is.” However Howes says it is a long race and he has time to make up the 12 seconds on Sanders.
“We have a couple of thousand more kilometers to ride through Portugal, the weather is starting to roll through now so that’s going to make it pretty fun and interesting,” Howes adds. “I’m excited to hopefully see some new tracks out there and see what challenges this race has to give us.”
With the opening kilometers complete, focus now shifts to the first full day of competition: 180 km of timed action and a 46 km transfer across the rolling plains of Alentejo. Riders will face demanding sandy terrain alongside unpredictable local weather, before regrouping near the Grândola bivouac for a final twist – a short but decisive 3 km sandy special stage to close out the day.
