He is one of the superstars of the sport, a five-time winner of the gruelling Dakar Rally and a six-time Cross-Country Rallies World Championship winner.
Yet, he had no qualms about getting on the back of a motocross bike and making a first appearance at a domestic event such as the recently-concluded Emirates Desert Championship.
For Spaniard Marc Coma, who has been competing on motorbikes for more than two decades, the lure of riding in the desert is too much to resist.
“I love the desert,” says Coma, 27, who has been in the UAE for the past couple of weeks to prepare for the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the opening stage of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship that will be held here from March 27 to April 2.
“In the desert there are no half measures. You can say that you like the desert ‘a little bit’, or do not like it ‘a little bit’ – you either love the deserts or you hate them. If you are in the desert for the first time, you will realise very quickly if you are in the wrong place.”
Coma, of course, has never felt out of place in the desert on his bike. His Dakar triumphs testify to that, and so do his success in Abu Dhabi and the Cross-Country Rallies – the Spaniard has won the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge seven times in the past nine years on his KTM bike.
“There are very big dunes, huge dunes,” Coma says of the attraction of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. “Only here we can find this condition, big area, like almost all the country are dunes. The Empty Quarter is a fantastic place for a rally race.
“The conditions we find in the Empty Quarter always are very hard. The temperature is very high – it’s like cooking our bikers, you know. So we have to take care, but rally is a tough sport so conditions have to be like that.”
And Coma says that is the reason he has chosen this career.
“I like motorsport and I like to be in the desert,” he says. “If you like both things, rally is the right sport.”
That love took roots early, even before Coma had seen a desert. Probably tales he heard from his father and uncle, two great motorcycle enthusiasts, intrigued him and the youngster was obsessed about riding in those vast, empty, inhospitable lands.
Coma says he remembers sneaking out of the house on a Montesa Cota 348 when he was about eight years old and riding in the mountain tracks around Avia, a small municipality in the province of Barcelona.
At the age of 12, he got his own bike: a Puch Cobra 74. It was reward for “good results in the school”, Coma says. “Of course, I played football because in Spain everybody plays football, but I am not a talent for that.
“My father was in two wheelers and is still riding in the motocross vintage races in Spain. So in my house, two wheels are present all the time.
“But my father never pushed me to be a rider, or to be involved in the sport. It was my decision and for this, I have to say, thanks to him.”
Determined to make a name for himself, Coma started competing in the national and world enduro championships in 1995.
In 2002, he made his first appearance at the Dakar, the “Tour de France” of motorbikes according to him, aboard an unproven Suzuki-CSV and immediately caught the attention of KTM. Four years later, he won his first Dakar title and has added the 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015 crowns to his CV.
Only Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel, with six Dakar titles on the bike, has won more.
Coma still gets the buzz from spending hours aboard his bike in the often unforgiving wilderness, and he is even considering following in the footsteps of his KTM teammate Sam Sunderland and moving base to the UAE.
“It is something that I have to consider honestly because here you have everything,” Coma says. “The desert is here also. So I have to consider that. I cannot say ‘yes’, but it is something I have to keep in mind to take the right decision.
“But always when I come here, I feel comfortable and I like the people, friendly. Really, I feel good.”
arizvi@thenational.ae
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