Dakar, Brabec reassures the fans: “I’ll be at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge”

2023 hasn’t exactly begun in the way Ricky Brabec hoped. The factory HRC rider crashed during one of the first Dakar stages and ended up in hospital, where he remained under observation for a few days before he was able to return home. He has now received another unpleasant surprise, as the latest tests have confirmed a fracture of the T1 and T2 vertebrae.

Fortunately, the winner of the 2020 Dakar will just need a few weeks of total rest before getting back in the saddle and, as he himself has announced on social media, he should be able to take part in the next world Rally Raid, or rather the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, scheduled to run from 26 February to 3 March.

Brabec: “They didn’t tell me I’d got fractured vertebrae in Arabia”

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“Days like today make me wish I was still in the Dakar competing with the rest”, comments Ricky on social media. “It's been a slow few days and after everything is said and done we have a few breaks along our spine. In the beginning of all of this the pain was there and brutal, after a quick check in Saudi I was really starting to feel like a wimp when they said nothing was wrong which left me wondering what was actually going on.”

“Getting home on the earliest flight and directly to the doctor, we discovered T1 and T2 are broken but in a stable condition, and a disc pushing close to the spinal cord”, continues the Honda rider. “The doctor says a few weeks of recovery and we should be able to go, see you guys at Abu Dhabi.”