Work colleagues at the Autonet headquarters in Satu Mare on Thursday gave biker Emanuel Gyenes a warm welcome back, complete with champagne and cake, in celebration of him finishing 23rd overall at the 2024 Dakar Rally and 1st among the “ambassadors” in the competition.

“This was the toughest edition to take place in Saudi Arabia, it was the fifth staged there. I had absolutely no technical problem, as they say, new things roll smoothly. My motorcycle did much better than the previous one, although aesthetically it looked the same, it had a different gearbox with more gear ratios, and this could be sensed from day one. This helped me a lot in achieving the result I got,” said Gyenes.

He confessed that he didn’t enjoy himself too much at the race because he helped the other competitors, placing 1st in the “ambassadors” category.

“I helped other fellow bikers with technical advice, how to prepare their motorcycle, how to manage their time every afternoon, because time management is very important in this category, you have to be very orderly, time is very tight. In this category you don’t have time for anything at all. Basically, the Dakar passed me by without enjoying it, because every afternoon when I entered the bivouac I had to get the motorcycle ready for the next stage, take the tires to get mounted on the rim. A truck from Hungary was carrying the tires, I had to walk around the bivouac to look for it, move the tires by cart, take back the old ones, I wasn’t allowed to leave them there,” said Gyenes, who finished his 14th Dakar Rally with a noteworthy result.