Dakar 2021 marks the tenth year that the Xtreme+ team will take the Polaris RZR to Dakar: The legendary race that has shaped both the history and the future of SXS racing.
The Xtreme+ team first took the Polaris RZR to Dakar in 2012, before the SSV category was even introduced in the racing line-up. In the first year of taking on the Dakar, the Xtreme+ team claimed first place in the T3 category with driver Willy Alcaraz, making Polaris the first-ever side-by-side manufacturer to not only compete, but also to win the Dakar; a triumphant first win that set off a long streak of unbeaten Dakar rallies for Xtreme+…
Further assaults on what is arguably the world’s toughest race, the Xtreme+ team claimed the top spot of the T3 podium a further six times, from 2012 right up to 2017. Not only that, the French-based team has five Silkway Rally titles under their belt, six FIA World Championships, five Qatar Cross Country Rally titles and eight Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge wins, as well as a number of additional rally and Baja wins across the world.
Marco Piana, Xtreme+ Team Manager, said, “The Polaris RZR was the side-by-side that pioneered rally raid, and we are so happy to be celebrating ten years of racing around the world – we’ve made memories that will last a lifetime, and out of nine Dakar editions we’ve competed at, we’ve won six of them – but that doesn’t mean we’ve finished fighting for the title.”
Now with a new beast behind them the RZR Pro XP, the Xtreme+ team is heading to the 2021 Dakar to reclaim their long history of podium finishes.
With many of the world’s famous rallies cancelled this year due to Covid-19, the Xtreme+ testing efforts with the Pro XP rig, which were aggressive in order to prepare for Dakar, were not stopped; regarded as one of the world’s toughest and most powerful off-road challenges.
“This year we’re taking the new RZR Pro XP to Dakar, and wow – what an awesome machine it is,” continued Marco. “We spent six months in development with the machine – six months of hard work, studying and collaborating with Polaris to make it the best possible vehicle for the team – and the comments after just the first two days of testing were unanimous: Easy, robust, comfortable and capable for everything Dakar has to throw at it.”
After 1,600 kilometres of large sandy dunes and technical rocky trails, testing in Tunisia has recently ended, completing 4,000 kilometres so far since the RZR Pro XP first arrived with theXtreme+ team.
“Performance and quality are the best qualities of the Pro XP,” continued Marco. “We feel in a really good position with this vehicle and the team are super positive about what it can bring to the Dakar race. We’ve got CST Apache tyres – super resistant and reliable, and the entire drive train from Sky Works using French brand Donnere suspension is very effective. At high speed the Pro XP can overcome all obstacles and above all, it always allows last minute corrections even when obstacles appear out of ‘nowhere’ – it gives us a lot of confidence for the difficult situations that we are sure to see at Dakar.”
The team will participate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the world’s toughest race from 3 January 2021 to 15 January 2021.