Rally Raid
Learn how Toby Price became a Dakar Rally legend
Australian off-road biker Toby Price is already a legend of the Dakar Rally, but he’s not done yet! The 2025 edition brings a new challenge for the champion. Get to know the man and the mullet.
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Toby Price has been setting the pace on two wheels in deserts all over the world for close to a decade. Ever since his sensational podium finish on his Dakar Rally debut, the man from Down Under has been a major reference point at the rally.
In 2025, Price will take on a new challenge: four wheels. At the upcoming Dakar Rally, Price will compete in the car category, driving the T1+ Overdrive Toyota Hilux with none other than Sam Sunderland as his navigator. Each holds two previous Dakar Rally wins, a combined four victories, and a total of 21 Dakar Rallys under the belt for the pair.
Sam Sunderland and Toby Price are ready for Dakar Rally 2025
© Kin Marcin/Red Bull Content Pool
Discover Price’s remarkable origin story and tap into his mindset ahead of his latest trip to Saudi Arabia to compete in the Dakar Rally. Keep reading to find out more about Price and the event that made him a legend, and learn about the rally that has become synonymous with his life.
“The Dakar was five times greater than I had imagined,” says Price about his first time. “It was a challenge in itself. I had never felt so physically tired and drained at the end of an event before.”
Price is no stranger to finish lines
© Flavien Duhamel/Red Bull Content Pool
I’m not a superhuman or an alien. I’m just like everybody else. I’ve just been able to put a few races together and have some success like that
01
The beginning
Growing up on a 43,000-acre (174-square-kilometre) farm in New South Wales allowed Price plenty of room to explore as a kid. To help him get around the farm he started riding bikes before he was three years old. Just one year later he was already competing in junior competitions.
“When I was racing on the 50 and 60cc bikes, it was all about having fun with racing on the weekends,” Price remembers. “When I raced then, I wasn’t looking to project it towards becoming a professional. It was just a bit of fun with the friends.”
Watch Price take a trip back to the farm in the 2019 short film Cracked below.
5 min
Cracked
Toby Price races through the Australian Outback with his rally bike to deliver a carton of eggs.
02
The deserts of South America
Price’s reputation as an Enduro biker was established in his native Australia with wins at the Finke and Hattah Desert Races as well as a stack of Australian Off-Road Championships and National Enduro Championships. The next step was to go international and the event he chose was the Dakar Rally, the toughest of them all.
Price scored a remarkable third-place finish as a privateer entry at the Dakar on his debut in 2015, when the route started and finished in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“I was so damn stoked because getting a podium in my first one wasn’t in my wildest dreams,” Price recalls. “I think consistency is the most important thing with that race and being smooth, smart and collected.”
Price soon became a popular figure at the Dakar, on and off the track. Watch his Red Bull TV show Bivouac Barber below.
6 min
Carlos Sainz pays a refreshing visit to Toby Price
Carlos Sainz avoids Toby Price's clippers but still leaves feeling years younger.
03
Claiming top spot
Ahead of his second attempt at the Dakar, Price joined Red Bull KTM Factory Racing. As well as the benefits of joining the rally’s top factory team, there was pressure to maintain the Austrian manufacturer’s winning streak that stretched back for more than a decade.
Price took all that pressure in his stride as he won five stages en route to an outright victory of 40 minutes from his nearest rival. Price became the first Australian to win at the Dakar as he showed an intuitive understanding of what it takes to be successful at the unique rally.
“You have to take it day by day and not think ahead of what you will do in the following days,” explains Price. “You have to be consistent and stay in it; you can’t drop out of it at any point so I think that’s the big challenge for sure.”
The best way to see Price at the Dakar is in super slo-mo, watch the two-time winner in action below.
2 min
Toby Price jumps at speed – in slo-mo
Toby Price shares how to utilise every bump and jump on the Dakar Rally terrain to help get ahead in the race.
04
Breaking the pain barrier
Price’s second Dakar victory came in 2019 and gave Red Bull KTM Factory Racing an 18th consecutive win at the famous rally. But that isn’t the most remarkable fact about this particular win. What’s even more remarkable than KTM’s never-to-be-beaten winning streak is the fact that Price rode 5,200km to victory with a broken bone!
Just weeks before the rally, hosted by Peru, Price broke the scaphoid bone in his right wrist. He considered giving up his entry to the rally, but then thought he may as well give it a shot.
“I thought I would only be able to do two stages and then pull out and that would have been me done, but the support from everyone back home in Australia, and then having some things go my way and a bit of luck, it just worked out in the end,” said Price with trademark modesty at the finish line in Peru. "Pretty much all I can say is that it feels like there are about five people driving a knife in my wrist now."
Price raced the entire 2019 Dakar with a broken wrist... and won!
© Marcelo Maragni / Red Bull Content Pool
05
Necessity is the mother of invention
Price showed his bush mechanic skills at the 2021 Dakar during a marathon stage between Ha'il and Neom in Saudi Arabia. Price was cut off from his mechanics and spare parts when his rear tyre was shredded by sharp rocks. Price set about repairing the wheel himself with the only thing he had to hand – zip ties and gaffer tape.
Remarkably the wheel got Price through the 709km stage that included sections through towering sand dunes as well as rocky paths. “I’m super surprised we’re here,” said Price on his return to the bivouac. “My last zip tie was used around the 200km mark. It’s remarkable it held together.”
See Price in full bush mechanic mode below.
06
That haircut
When you see Price racing on the dunes, it always has the same look: chin to the tin and mullet flapping behind; it’s one of the greatest sights in all of motorsports. It turns out that we have Price’s team-mate Sam Sunderland to thank for it. Price takes up the story…
“It was in 2016 that Sam was meant to get a haircut while we were in Igualada in Spain. But he got a haircut somewhere else so I said, ‘I’ve got to get a haircut anyway so I might just take your appointment.’ And Sam said, ‘If you get a mullet, I’ll pay for your haircut.' So I got the mullet and it was only supposed to be around for a week. But now years later, it’s still going strong and everyone loves it.”
Toby Price shows off his famous mullet
© Sebas Romero
07
An ordinary bloke
Price still has the same warm and friendly ‘G’day mate’ for everyone as he moves around the bivouac despite now being one of the Dakar’s biggest celebrities. He’d much rather have his feet on the ground than have his head in the clouds.
“My success has been very good but I’m just like anybody else that I pass on the street,” explains Price. “I’m not a superhuman or an alien. I’m just like everybody else. I’ve just been able to put a few races together and have some success like that. But being able to meet the people and go home safe to my family, that’s the biggest success for me.”
See the small luxuries that Price takes on tour with a visit to his Dakar camper van below.
4 min
A tour of Toby Price's campervan
Join Mike Chen as he checks out Toby Price's five-star accommodation at the Dakar Rally.
08
Paying the price
Racing daily distances of 500km for two weeks at an average speed of 120kph mean that injuries are a part of the deal at the Dakar Rally. Price has twice crashed out of the Dakar and been airlifted from the desert to the nearest hospital.
“In 2017 I crashed really hard and broke my femur, and I was out of the rally on day four so it doesn’t always work out,” says Price. “Sometimes it is like going into a casino and rolling the dice because with racing motorcycles you are gambling sometimes with what you are doing.”
Price opened up about various injuries in the 2018 movie Paying the Price, watch it below.
38 min
Paying the Price
Follow Toby Price’s emotional journey from simple country kid to Australia’s first Dakar Rally champion.
09
Finke about it
Away from the Dakar Rally, in his native Australia Price began putting the wheels in motion for a switch to car racing. Nowhere has this been more evident than at the Finke Desert Race. After winning six Finkes on a bike, Price now races in the car class. Success has followed Price onto four wheels, and he has won the past three car races at Finke.
“To get my first win was a dream come true, and then to say I have nine is wild,” Price said in Alice Springs following his latest Finke win. “We had a really good run. The truck did an amazing job, my crew did an amazing job – without them, I wouldn’t be up here.”
Take a trip to the Finke Desert Race by watching Toby Price: Ridin' Shotgun below...
54 min
Toby Price: Ridin’ Shotgun
Can Toby Price become the undisputed king of the Australian desert in 2021 by finally winning on four wheels?
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