Don’t give up: Oriol Vidal, from a nightmare, to the opportunity of his life

The unexpected day, the opportunity you’ve been waiting for may come. There is the example of Cristina Gutiérrez, who came to ask for a loan, her last bullet, to run in search of the opportunity that finally came to her. Another similar case is that of Oriol Vidal. The co-pilot of lamps (Girona) lived a real nightmare in Dakar 2022, and later, another one even worse: not knowing when he will be able to race again, and therefore, to be paid.

On stage 3 of the last edition of the Dakar (2022), Oriol experienced the worst day of his sports career when he was stranded in the desert with Saleh waiting for a help truck that never came. It was late and they had to light a fire. Other help comes to their aid and they continue as the pilot falls asleep and Orioles suffering from hypothermia and hallucinations. They reach the goal in the heroic end, which is at night, but they find that their team has left and left them stranded. They had to leave. After that, Oriol is preparing for another season with the Emirati pilot, but the worst is yet to come. Saleh al-Saif He canceled the races he had on his schedule and left a Vidal without income who found himself in a very complicated situation.

“At the beginning of the season we had the idea of ​​holding the World Bajas Championship. But Saleh didn’t get the first one. Then, the second one was skipped, and there I said: ‘I can’t take it without entering’. Then, in April, he told me that he had financial problems and that he could not continue competing until the 2023 Dakar.

At the time, Oriol Vidal thought of retiring at only 29 years old. Stop being a professional co-driver and return to his former profession, that of a mechanical engineer. Oriol is a track engineer in the Superbike World Championship and he combines this with his other passion: competing in Bajas on a quad. One day, Santi Navarro (driver and head of FN Speed) suggested that he debut as a co-driver in the Dakar. He took it as an opportunity to learn from a race he dreamed of doing on quads and for which he could not find the budget. He went from looking for sponsors and suffering to find support to race a quad, to earning money for being a co-pilot. There he decided to devote himself to piloting. But in 2022, the situation happening to Saleh made him think about his life.

“I was about to throw away the engineering resumes. The world of competition is sometimes quite unstable. Those who do not know him closely, may not know. But this world also has dark sides like defaults and instability, you never know how things will turn out and I want to distance myself from this path,” he told MD. “A lot I have dedicated myself to the competition for years. But in this world we live day by day. We don’t have security, we don’t have a high salary that allows you to be calm in times when you might be left without a project. You don’t have a backup . And if you pay a mortgage and have expenses … it’s very difficult. When you come to the end of the year, you ask yourself: “What will I do next year?” And you have no answer. When Al Saif is with me, I don’t know anything”, he highlights.

An unexpected call changed everything.

But in August, a call changed everything. He will drive alongside Kuwaiti driver Mshari Al-Thefiri in the South Racing structure. His good performance led him to the official South Racing Can-Am team who wanted him as a co-driver for the Lithuanian Rokas Baciuska. He went from nothing to winning the first W2RC Rally-Raid World Championship in the light prototype category (T3). Later, Red Bull joined the structure and Oriol Vidal will tackle the Dakar 2023 within the official Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team. Today, Rokas Baciuska and Oriol Vidal are the Dakar leaders in the T4 class with 4 days to go. And above all: Oriol already has a stability that he has never experienced before.

“Being with the Red Bull Can-Am Factory team on a contract makes things clearer. I didn’t expect something like this to happen to me. For me, it’s a dream to have this kind of support”, he said happily. – he said happily.

“Being leader of the Dakar for a co-driver is not easy. Things have to line up a lot. As long as you do the job well and be a good co-driver, it’s not just up to you, it depends on the ‘kopi’, the car, the team and many things. And to meet all the conditions to fight to win a Dakar is a dream come true for me”, he commented to MD with a big smile .

But undoubtedly, this pressure to defend the leadership in a Dakar is less than experienced a few months ago, not knowing if I can continue paying the mortgage due to the lack of income with water around my neck: ” Obviously, knowing what day you’re going to collect and what I’m going to do throughout 2023 is something that changes your life. The Dakar started then and I didn’t know what I was going to do after the Dakar. I started this year knowing what I will do throughout 2023. This is very different. Take it with more enthusiasm and energy, because in sports, I always move forward with passion and illusion, because otherwise I would have left by then. But the point This stability helps a lot.