Dakar Rally2 Runner-Up
Preston Campbell grew up in the back of a box van traveling to races with his dad, Johnny Campbell. Today, he’s built a racing career of his own — contesting in National Hare and Hound races for JCR Honda and international rally competitions for Honda HRC. In this episode, host Heather Wilson Schiltz sits down with Preston to talk about his progression from NHHA to finishing runner-up in the Rally2 class at the legendary Dakar Rally.
Preston shares what it’s really like to race nearly 5,000 miles over two weeks in Saudi Arabia, what road book navigation is like, and why slowing down to regroup was his strategy when mistakes happened. From 4 a.m. starts and 12-hour days on the bike to sleeping in desert bivouacs to riding at average speeds of 60+ mph, this conversation gives an honest look at what Dakar demands physically and mentally.
🎧 What You’ll Hear:
• How National Hare and Hound racing prepared him for high-speed rally competition
• What Dakar actually looks like — 13 stages, almost 5,000 miles, one rest day and nonstop navigation
• How road book navigation works and why it feels like “texting and driving” at race pace
• The physical and mental grind of 12-hour days
• Managing mistakes without turning one error into two
• What marathon bivouacs are like (including sleeping in motorhomes or even tents in the dunes)
• The behind-the-scenes support system of the Monster Energy Honda HRC team
• How he decompressed after returning home — and what’s next in rally racing
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“I rode the CRF450RX Rally. It’s a production rally bike that Honda’s selling now. So it’s based off a CRF bike, chassis and motor. They built tanks, because the bike has to carry like 35 liters, which is almost nine gallons of fuel. And they had to attach the navigation tower. So there’s some modifications the team had to do to be able to make the bike ready for the rallies and for the customer to buy these bikes. But yeah, we did some suspension testing and tuning at like Portugal and Morocco that helped us set up for the bike for Dakar.”
-Preston Campbell, Honda HRC Team Racer
