Completing the Dakar is an act of heroism: an 8,200-kilometer challenge of extreme competition in the Saudi Arabian desert that constitutes the toughest
rally in the world. But what 36-year-old Catalan Joan Lascorz has achieved in this 44th edition is also a true historic milestone. And
we at Help Flash wanted to join him at the beginning of his feat , a story of overcoming difficulties with a goal achieved: becoming the
first quadriplegic driver to compete in the Dakar.
Joan Lascorz: innate talent for speed, motor skills, and competition
Nicknamed Jumbo since his motorcycle days,
Joan Lascors suffered an accident eight years ago on the Imola circuit in the Superbike World Championship that
drastically reduced his mobility . The fall caused
tetraplegia with loss of motor skills in his lower limbs, lack of mobility in his hands and fingers, which means he can only move his wrists, and other consequences, such as reduced ability to control body temperature and muscle spasticity.
But not even this serious accident could stop Joan. After his recovery, he made his debut in TT rallying in 2014 and in 2016 he was crowned
Spanish Champion , competing in the general
buggy category rather than in the
handycar category for adapted vehicles. Thus, the idea of competing in the Dakar began to take shape, and his desire to compete grew ever greater. In 2022, thanks to a crowdfunding campaign in which Help Flash collaborated, Lascorz was able to fulfill his dream: to participate in the
rally and once again demonstrate that he has a unique talent for speed, motorsports, and competition.
The crowdfunding campaign that opened the door to the Dakar
Competing in the toughest
rally on the planet is a
mental and physical challenge that requires good preparation and equipment . Lascorz's spinal cord injury made the costs of participating in the Dakar even greater than for any other driver: he required specific controls adapted to his mobility, special training and physical trainers familiar with spinal cord injuries, as well as personal assistants both during the race and in training.
To be able to participate, the driver from Hospitalet de Llobregat
decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign, in which
we at Help Flash contributed our grain of sand before the start of the Dakar , just as other important figures in the world of motorsports such as Marc Márquez, Pol Espargaró, and Ana Carrasco did. By the end of the campaign, 238 participants were received and 32,641 euros were raised, 200% of the initial capital needed. Lascorz
expressed his gratitude in an interview: "Being able to get out there was already an achievement for me
. There are hundreds of people who have helped me so I could be here. Without public help, I would be in a wheelchair with a joystick, and look, I'm tetraplegia, racing the Dakar."
Joan Lascorz makes history at the 2022 Dakar
But his feat wasn't limited to becoming the first quadriplegic driver to compete in the Dakar. Lascorz went further, faster, and completed the
rally with flying colors, finishing
among the top ten in his category . The driver took on the Dakar in
a side-by-side (SSV T4), popularly known as
buggies , a category on the rise and one of the most closely contested in the race, where human weight outweighs that of the machine and where the driver's role in protecting the fragile mechanics of the vehicles and avoiding snags in the dunes that could ruin his race is crucial.
Lascorz drove an adapted
buggy with one hand on the wheel and the other on the throttle, and had
Miguel Puertas as his co-driver , whom Joan describes as "the driver's hands," as he has them firmly on the controls. During the
twelve stages and fourteen days of the rally, Lascorz and Puertas fought to finish among the top fifteen finishers each day, managing to avoid
a single puncture or breakage (like the delicate transmission belts of the
buggies )
throughout the rally. Neither a urinary tract infection, nor a fever, nor the cold desert nights that limited Joan's rest due to his thermoregulation problems, managed to stop 'Jumbo' Lascorz. This fighting spirit, along with their perseverance in avoiding errors and mechanical failures, allowed Lascorz and Puertas to climb the standings to ninth place.
With eleven Dakars under his belt, Miguel Puertas, a rally institution and one of the best desert navigators, has probably seen it all, but co-driving with Joan has been a unique experience: "For me, he's a daily role model. What he does is very tough, for him everything is more extreme,
doing a Dakar is 10 times harder for him than it is for me ,"
he describes , impressed. "The temperature, for example, affects him a lot. What's cold for me is freezing for him because he has no control over his body temperature.
Finishing in his condition is like trying to win the Dakar in a classic."
The Adventure Rally: A Brief History of the Dakar
The Dakar, the benchmark
rally raid event and
the most demanding and ambitious adventure a driver can face in motorsport , celebrated its 44th anniversary this year. It all began in 1977, when
Thierry Sabine got lost on his motorcycle in the Libyan desert during the Abidjan-Nice rally and was rescued in extremis from the sands. Upon his return to France and fascinated by the landscapes and the extreme nature of the route, the driver shared his experience as an adventure worthy of being replicated in an international competition. Thus was born a race that would start in Europe, reach Algiers, pass through Agadez, and finish in Dakar. The idea would be accompanied by a motto that was in itself a declaration of intent:
"A challenge for those who leave. A dream for those who stay."
For many years, the
rally started in Paris as a pure adventure, welcoming amateur drivers and all-terrain vehicles and with little organization. Then, everything changed until it became what it is today:
one of the most media-focused sporting events in the world . Since 1995, the Dakar Rally has changed its starting point to other cities such as Barcelona, Granada, and Lisbon. The destination point also ceased to be the Senegalese capital in some editions and was replaced by Cairo, Sharm el-Sheikh, or Cape Town. The race moved to South America between 2009 and 2019, the year in which the ASO, the
rally organizer, announced that it would be held in Saudi Arabia starting in 2020.
This
2022 Dakar was fast, competitive, tough, and once again pushed its participants to the limit: 104 cars, 109 motorcycles, 6 quads, and 20 trucks managed to finish the competition. Among them, a new page was written in the history of the Dakar, one that we at Help Flash celebrate with special enthusiasm: Joan Lascorz, the first quadriplegic driver to compete in the rally, achieved ninth place in his category. Congratulations, Jumbo!
