N° 129 - TEAM MAION RACING TEAM

MAION Mauro FRA 27/07/1967

Vehicle

MODEL	MAKE
E 103	BETA

Mauro Maion: « I will stop when I make it to the end of the Dakar »

Mauro Maion won’t find peace of mind until he finishes the rally. In his first attempt in 2004, he dropped out just 22 kilometres before the end of a very long stage. As soon as he returned home, Mauro decided to do it again the following year when he would be 40. “This time, I really want to go all the way,” he says, ‘if I don’t I’ll have to do it again”. When you’re in the rally you ask yourself, ‘what am I doing here?”. And when you go home, you say ‘I need to go back’.”

After his misadventures in the dunes in 2004, due to the weight of his motorcycle, this year he’ll be on a rather unique machine. He will ride a Beta 525 alongside friend Mathieu Serradori also aboard the Italian bike. Thanks to these machines, Mauro and Mathieu picked up a collective nickname on the 2007 Tunisian Rally. “We were soon noticed,” says Mauro. “Cyril Neveu was intrigued by the Beta, tipped his hat and named us the Beta Boys.”

Mauro chose a 525 rather than a 450, that could be “a bit just” in the dunes. Confident about his mechanic skills, he is riding without assistance despite his 2004 mishaps. “It isn’t the technical difficulty that makes the Dakar an event apart,” believes Mauro. “But it is the rhythm of the field, the atmosphere in the bivouac and the length of the stages. But I am confident, because the Beta did a very good job in Tunisia”. A bit of an academic choice that could end up being judicious. At least to mark the esprit if nothing else.

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