Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
You always have dreams. They set you into motion, you know?!
In eighty-eight, when I started racing Motocross here in Brazil,
André was debuting in the Dakar Rally.
The Paris Dakar Rally used to be known as the "Death Rally".
Those things impressed us as drivers here in Brazil.
No Brazilian had ever gone.
I always had an urge.
Then, I had many achievements and victories in the regularity
endurance races, which would be comparable to karts, while the Dakar would be the formula in this sport, and the rules are very similar.
And then I won the biggest events in Brazil and my dream grew a little more.
That is the great challenge: to be able to...
you overcome yourself all the time.
Because you're always one hundred percent focused,
always waiting for a surprise.
I came here to be the first Brazilian driver to start...
finish, to be in the front and then win a category.
And things went along, we persisted. In the first three years,
we couldn't finish them, you know?!
Then, in the third year, I was the first South American to complete the rally.
And the following year I earned my first victory,
the first non-European driver to win a category in the Dakar.
We started sixteen years ago
with only a couple of bikes, and now we are here, in our current context,
which is a bike, a car, and a truck, raking in good results
both in international competitions and in Brazilian ones as well.
The monoblock, suspension, hemokinetic joints, axle shafts,
engine,
tires,
power steering,
brake fluid,
water, oil,
radiator,
in order to know that the car is a hundred percent.
Ninety-nine point nine percent is no good for us, you know?!
It must to be one hundred percent right.
This is something that pleases me:
you get ready, you evolve your equipment.
We worked a lot with Cenpes,
a lot with the folks at Reduc, on better lubricants for bikes,
cars, for the trucks.
We would bring our problems to the Cenpes staff, so they could find a solution for us.
One was the fact that the truck's transfer box lubricants, for example, were boiling.
This was new for us, and they found the solution. That was great.
It takes time.
In ninety-six, we already had Petrobras' support,
but it was still limited. The partnership was getting underway, you know?!
Then, this was in the days of the three bikes, then it turned into two bikes and a car,
then a bike, a car, and a truck.
That was in ninety-nine, and since then, the Lubrax Petrobras team
is the only one in the world in the three categories.
The bike is the most dangerous. It depends a lot on your fitness.
You are on two wheels, you have to keep balancing yourself. And riding on the sand is not very easy.
Cars and trucks were a great discovery.
I was then able to give answers to some of the fears I had in the past.
Cars are much safer, because you're inside a cockpit, all protected, buckled up by a seatbelt.
The first year I went, I was quite spooked.
I was there, racing along at a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty, on my bike.
And suddenly a dinosaur just like that one passed me at about a hundred and sixty per hour.
Because it is a great event. Both in the Sahara, and in the Sertão, it is the event of the year.
In the Sertão Rally, we go through very impoverished regions.
The Petrobras Lubrax team has a brand, which is "smile in the sertões".
We have a kit that contains toothpaste, a toothbrush, a book,
there is a toy, which is a little car, and we distribute it with a pan,
because you see mothers making food in the oil pan, stuff like that.
So we put everything in the pan and distribute it. That way, there is a gift for the child and for the mother.
It is a great school of life, it is not just riding a bike, a car, a truck.
You have to know mechanics, you have to know how to navigate by the stars, based on equipment.
You have to know medicine, because you could get hurt out there, and a doctor might take a day, two days to arrive.
Survival, relate with people, with the team, to deal with the unexpected.
So even we have a hard time explaining it, you know?!
Because after you finish the Dakar Rally, after twenty days in all that stress,
you come back to Brazil saying you will never go back, you know?!
Then, a week later, you are already thinking about all of the preparations.
Since a year later there will be the rally again,
and you have a year of preparations and several things to do.
And for those who compete, victory is always a great stimulant.
Wow, the biggest adrenaline is the taste of victory. It is great.