“I will celebrate the 20th anniversary of my first Dakar”
Crew facts
HR:
- Helder Rodrigues has an illustrious career behind him as a motorcycle competitor, racing the Dakar on two wheels from 2006 to 2017. In that time he chalked up two back to back podiums in 2011/12 with Yamaha before switching to Honda in 2013.
- In total the Portuguese rider clocked up 9 stage wins before, in 2018, taking on the role as manager at HRC alongside fellow countryman Ruben Faria. There too he enjoyed a fair bit of success – under his watch American Ricky Brabec won the Dakar in 2020, Honda’s first since 1989, with Kevin Benavides replicating that exploit the following year.
- You might imagine that the Portuguese man would be content to continue in his management role, alongside running his soup factory… but first and foremost Helder is a competitor and the lure of racing eventually proved irresistible. Having his friend and fellow motorcycle competitor Goncalo Reis available as co-driver meant it didn’t take much encouragement for Helder to put a helmet back on and compete in the 2023 Dakar in the T3 category.
- Although they led some stages, mechanical problems saw them finish the rally in the Dakar Experience category. After two years away, working on different projects, Helder is back again for 2026 in a T4 he’s built in his own workshop.
Ambition
HR: “When I line up for the start in Yanbu, I will celebrate the 20th anniversary of my first Dakar entry! In addition to racing the Dakar I’ve always liked the technical side of things. I did a lot of development work on the Yamaha back in the day. Then of course there is the experience I gained managing the Honda factory team. I think I can put all that together to run my own SSV team and that is the goal for the future. Obviously, it would be nice to promote my project with a podium -that would be the dream. But I’ve been away from the race for a couple of years and the Dakar is always such a lottery anyway. As always, I will do my maximum and we’ll see how we go.”
