Team Vendetta UAE: Two Brits and an Irishman tackle the Dakar!

Besides factory GASGAS man and former winner Sam Sunderland, plus our fighting Fantic-riding female Jane Daniels, British fans can watch for the progress of Team Vendetta UAE, consisting of British riders Dave Mabbs and David McBride, alongside Irish debutant Oran O’Kelly, who are taking on the Dakr Rally this year!

Words & Images: Vendetta Racing UAE

The Return to Dakar 2024

Vendetta Racing UAE is a privately-run motorcycle racing team based in Dubai, competing in both local and international events, off-road and on the track. The team was formed in 2007 and has flown the UAE flag in a host of championships all over the world, from circuit racing to international rallies, Isle of Man road racing to local bajas.

All ready to go for the prologue stage of Dakar 2024. #92 David Mabbs, #93 Dave McBride, #94 Oran O’Kelly.

We are arguably the largest privately-owned motorcycle racing team in the region and can lay claim to being the most successful. Vendetta competes at elite level and regularly challenges higher budget outfits and in some cases, full factory teams.

We have had riders competing in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge since 2013 and over the years have brought home more than our fair share of success. In 2016 and again 2019 we came away with the team prize and our riders finished in the top ten overall. The biggest international sand event on the FIM Rally Championship calendar, the Desert Challenge has long been considered the ultimate testing ground for the world-famous Dakar Rally Although Vendetta’s riders have proven themselves time and again over the demanding dunes of Abu Dhabi’s Empty Quarter, Rub’ al Khali.

In 2020 We had the opportunity to compete in the toughest off-road endurance test of man and machine, entering 2 bikes in the toughest class, the ‘Malle Moto’

It was a tough fight which broke both body and machine meaning both Mabbs and Mcbride failed to reach the finish line.

In 2022 – The boys did it. 14 days of competing in what’s known and accepted globally as the worlds toughest off-road race…and finishing! 8404km’s of soft sand, Rocky mountain passes, stretches of tarmac as far as the eye can see. All of it ridden in every condition possible, freezing cold starts, rain, hot afternoons, starting and returning in the dark. A true testament of endurance grit and determination.

All scrutineered and sorted! L-R David Mabbs, Oran O’Kelly, and Dave McBride.

Dave McBride:

If anyone was bred for motorcycling, then it was Dave McBride. His father was an avid road racer from Northern Ireland who carried on competing when the family emigrated to Australia in the late 1960’s.  Dave began riding at the tender age of five and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth riding around the farms of South Australia and continued his obsession on two wheels when he arrived in the UAE in the late 1970’s.

Dave’s competitive motorcycling career was launched in the autumn of 1983 when local company, GAC sponsored him for two seasons. With regular top three finishes Dave was fifth overall in his opening season and third the year after that in the open championship. This continued regularly until late 1992, when he hung up his competitive boots to ride socially on the weekends in the wide-open spaces of the UAE desert.

The team get familiar with Dakar legend Stephane Peterhansel!

It wasn’t until the summer of 1996, when he was invited to ride in the UAE-based Alert team, that those competitive boots came back off the shelf. It was the first UAE Desert Challenge to include privateer motorcycle entries and astride a very standard Honda XR600 Dave managed to mix it up with a few of the factory teams, finishing a credible seventh overall. The next 23 years stands as testament to his skills as a desert rider with regular top 10 placements in UAE off-road series, ADDC and other international events.

Dave has flown the UAE flag at the Roof of Africa, Botswana Toyota 1000, Chilean and Moroccan CCR, coming home with top ten finishes and bragging rights.

Yet the ultimate goal for any off-road rider, the Dakar Rally, is still to be realised. News that the world’s most famous motor endurance race is to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2020 brought with it renewed hope that Dave, alongside his Vendetta Racing teammates, can line up for the most challenging rally raid on the planet.

David Mabbs:

Originally from Portsmouth in England, long-time Dubai resident, David Mabbs has competed in cross-country racing for more than 20 years on both four wheels and two.

He spent a decade racing prototype cars to many podium finishes in the FIA cross-country world championship and contested the Desert Challenge nine times in the 4×4 car category, achieving an outright class victory, top five overall rankings and was renowned for consistently challenging world champion factory drivers, missing outright stage victories by the narrowest of margins.

Switching to two wheels in 2013, Dave has competed in most rounds of the FIM cross-country world championship including Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Chile & Morocco. In 2019 he took on the challenge of the Africa Eco Race, which traces the original Dakar route and finished ninth in class.  Now with the possibility of a shot at the 2024 Dakar Rally looming large just over the border in Saudi Arabia, Dave is contemplating the realisation of a lifetime’s ambition and the biggest test of his racing career to date.

Oran O’Kelly:

Oran cut his teeth at world championship desert racing by participating in the Abu Dhabi desert challenge in 2022 and has been hungry for more ever since. Certainly the young gun of team but where he lacks in experience he makes up for it in stamina, talent and a thirst for the challenge.  See a full profile on Oran  >>> here <<<.

Oran gets some time on the Saudi sands before the prologue stage begins.

Dakar 2024

Entries have officially been accepted for Dave Mabbs, David McBride and Oran O’Kelly so we have had time for extensive planning and preparation in order to get all 3 riders to the finish line.

On the Prologue stage, all three riders came through with flying colours – McBride in 46th position, O’Kelly in 55th, and Mabbs in 96th.