Rebecca Busi
24 de March de 2022
24 de March de 2022
Finding out what we want to be for the rest of our lives isn't’ usually an easy task. But for Rebecca it was different. Her future, from a very early age, seemed to hold something specific for her. Rebecca Busi was born in Bologna, Italy, 26 years ago. There, she spent her childhood on four wheels — half the time on her electric ride-on car and the other half on her way to see her father participate in rally competitions. It was actually at the finish line of the Pharaohs Rally where emotions took hold of her — seeing her father cross the finish line after having waited for so long made her burst into tears and showed her what this world was capable of making her feel.
Rebecca’s father is essential in this story; he passed on to her his passion and his dream: “It was my father’s dream to participate in the Dakar Rally. I grew up listening to stories he would tell me. The legend of the race that was impossible to finish kept growing as I did”.
In 1977, driver Thierry Sebin got lost with his motorcycle as he was racing in the Libyan desert. Thierry didn’t make it to the finish line that day or the next. With no water, no clock, no shade, under the burning desert sun, he was rescued by race organisers who found him almost dead. When they found him, he said: “I think every racer should experience what I’ve experienced”. One year later, under the motto “a challenge for those who go; a dream for those who stay behind”, the Dakar Rally was born: the hardest race in history. From the moment the race was created, amazing stories never ceased to surprise us. In every edition there has been danger and risk: the first sandstorm in ‘83, the year in which every racer lost all their fuel due to how soft the sand was, competitors lost for days alone in the desert… Drivers that, in spite of everything, keep coming back every year, going along with Thierry Sebin’s words and having an unparalleled experience.
The Dakar legend never abandoned Rebecca. As time went by, her desire to experience it herself only grew bigger and bigger. And so, after years of kart racing and drifting courses, she found herself thinking about something: “I started getting tired of watching the life I wanted for myself on my phone so I started trying to figure out how to get started”. Her goal: becoming a professional pilot and completing the impossible race.
Rebecca got started, but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to make it on her own. She started knocking on several doors; most of them never answered. Not many people understand someone wanting to start a career competing in the hardest race possible. But this decision wasn’t guided solely by the thrill of living her father’s dream — she had a strategic vision: “I wanted to take my first step in Dakar because, if I’d started with a less important race, I wouldn’t have done anything different from any other racer. So, instead of doing that, I decided to finish the Dakar Rally having no prior experience. I have no doubt that I’m good at this. Maybe not the best, but I know what I’m doing. If you compete in the Adriatic Rally, no one is going to write about you and it’s difficult to get into the spotlight. But if you happen to “unfortunately” be the youngest Italian participating in Dakar and it’s also your first race ever, people are going to want to know about you”. Rebecca finally found someone to trust in her. The road to Dakar had started.
The next step was training in order to be in control of the three key aspects of this challenge. First it was understanding the desert’s conditions and secrets — how to face the dunes, how sand behaves… Secondly, exercising the body: the Dakar Rally is an endurance race as long as all the world cup’s races put together; it’s important to reduce tiredness effects to the least in order to be able to drive your best. Lastly, knowing your car and adapting to its behaviour, since it will be the one in charge of taking you all the way to the finish line. She needed an intensive training experience in order to prepare herself for what she was going to face and to be more confident. This required training sessions from 8 am to 6pm under the burning Moroccan sun.
After months of training, the day would finally come. But it wasn’t going to be all joy. “My fears started growing around things that could go wrong, like mechanical failures. I had to imagine how I could feel and then leave fear aside so it wouldn’t have an effect on me”.
Rebecca was there, at the starting line, remembering everything that had led her to that moment. It was time to turn a legend into reality and experience what Thierry Sebin couldn’t explain with words.
“The greatest challenge I had to face was, with no doubt, staying focused. Driving for so long without stopping can break you. You also have to remember that it’s not just you who’s racing — you have to respect the car. Being such a long race, you need to take care of your car or it won’t make it to the finish line. I should have done that during the first few days, but I didn’t. I finished 7th in the global but all through the night all we did was tighten screws”. Stages went by and Busi and her copilot kept on facing adversity day after day until the end.
After 11 long days, came the last one. The hardness of the desert wasn’t able to break Rebecca… and the legend of the race that couldn’t be finished remained only that, a legend. Rebecca made it to the finish line and became the youngest woman on that edition to have done so. She was now an established professional driver and all her questions were answered. “I didn’t know whether it was the right path until the day in which I crossed the finish line. Until that moment it had been a personal challenge. I was betting on myself, but until that very moment, I wasn’t sure that I could make it”.
It all started at that Pharaohs Rally where Rebecca waited with excitement for her father to make it to the finish line. Now, roles are reversed; it was Rebecca crossing the finish line and her father waiting with excitement for her. It all came full circle.
“Completing the Dakar Rally launched me straight to what I hope will become my full time job. Since January, I have launched my internet website, made my presentation for the 2022 season and I have put together a team to keep on racing. I have become an athlete and that’s something I’ve wanted ever since I was a little kid”. Rebecca set a goal for herself and achieved it. She fulfilled her dream in order to keep on living it. We will see her again in Dakar 2023.