A new adventure begins

2013 is bringing a new adventure for Paul Smith Racing, something that most riders can only dream of. In late 2011 GHR Honda offered Paul an opportunity to go with them to the 2013 Dakar Rally and ride a TRX700XX as part of the GHR Team. Smitty of course accepted the offer to become the first Australian quad rider to ever compete in the worlds largest motorsport event and long with that deal also comes a part with GHR at the Australian national off-road events, the Condo 750 in April, the Finke Desert Race in June and of course the best warm up event for Dakar, the Australian Safari which will run over the last week of September.

The GHR team have been developing a TRX700XX for Dakar based on the the 2010 Safari winning machine that was developed by Smith and his long time race mechanic Pete Wilhelms, along with GHR's Glenn Hoffman and Rob Ingram, Wilhelms and Smith, who bring a wealth of quad off-road race preparation, have been actively involved in the development of the new machine for Safari and Dakar.

The Dakar Rally itself runs from the 5th to the 20th of January 2013 beginning in Peru crossing the Andes Ranges twice into and out of Argentina finishing in Chile covering more than 8,000 Km of some of the most extreme terrain and conditions that are ever to be seen in competition.

Following the Dakar Rally, Paul will be taking a break from quad racing, making a return to his first passion of racing motorcycles instead although he will be competeing in all the same events just on two wheels instead of four.

Photo's below by Mike Chmiel of Sevenpoint Design