“A great way to get a foot in the door”
CREW FACTS
T.H.
- American Taz Harvey had oil in his bottle feed! His dad was a professional flat track racer who used his race winnings to buy a Triumph motorcycle dealership in California. Both Taz’s uncles also raced motorcycles. Nobody in his family thinks he’s remotely odd entering the Dakar!
- The family went on to open one of the very first Honda dealerships in the States which they still have today, alongside a Mazda concession.
- Taz has already competed with a few Dakar legends, such as Peterhansel and Giles Lalay, when he raced the ISDE in ’89 (Germany) and ’90 (Sweden). He even managed to get a gold medal riding an 80cc Kawasaki!
- At around the same time he was approached by KTM to be a support rider for another American planning on entering the Dakar. In the end the project never came to fruition but the urge to enter the Dakar was born.
- Taz later switched to car racing, competing in such legendary events as the Pan American in a series of Datsuns, winning the six cylinder class aboard a 240Z. He also raced touring cars for many years in the SCCA series and has a couple of tasty cars in his garage, including an ’87 4 rotor Mazda Le Mans car!
M.K.
- Taz gave Mike his first job as a motorcycle mechanic when he was working his way through college, so as they say over there: ‘we go way back’.
- Despite long hours in Taz’s workshop, Mike managed to get in enough study time to graduate as a mechanical engineer.
- He also managed to find the time to enter the 2006 Dakar in the motorcycle class. Despite breaking is wrist on the first day he actually finished the race and 3 operations later pretty much made a full recovery!
- He also raced in AMA Superbike and has the dubious distinction of being lapped by Freddie Spencer and yet still finishing the race in 11th place. Freddie always was a cut above…
2025 AMBITIONS
T.Z: “Coming over to Europe to race the ISDE you realised how big a deal the Dakar was and of course my ‘near miss’ Dakar motorcycle entry meant that the event was always on my radar. Then one day I saw something about the Dakar Classic on YouTube and my curiosity was piqued – it looked like a great way to get a foot in the door. After a little digging around I contacted Tecnosport and the fact that they were running Nissans really appealed. They do different packages but in the end I decided to buy a car off them - that way I won’t feel so bad if I bend it! The whole regularity thing looks pretty complicated. Fortunately I have a very experienced navigator in Mike so I don’t think we’ll actually get lost, though we obviously lack the experience to get right up to the front of the race. If we can finish in the top half of the results sheet I’ll be totally happy. And then if everything goes according to plan and we like what we see the idea is to come back in an SSV.”
M.K.: “I was so lucky to get to race the Dakar in Africa. It was the ride of my life and there was no way I was going to retire on the first day with an injury -even if it was quite a big one. I remember going to see the medical service on the rest day with an aluminium bar in my hand. They wanted to kick me out of the race but instead I managed to persuade them to put my hand in a handlebar shaped plaster cast using the metal bar as a guide (only a mechanical engineer would have thought of that!). The cast eventually broke, so I got them to put another one over the top of it. Of course, I couldn’t use the clutch but fortunately it was mainly sand so just about doable (!). I finished 70th with a few days in the Top 30. An amazing experience. All of which meant I didn’t take a lot of persuasion when Taz asked me if I wanted to co-drive for him. The whole regularity thing makes me a bit nervous but I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos and think I have a basic idea of what I need to do. We’ll find out more when we get there!”
