Forza Horizon isn’t my favorite car video game, nor is it my second, or even third. It is, however, entertaining from the standpoint that it lets you fulfill whatever crazy behind-the-wheel fantasies you may have. Want to ignore that stoplight, hop a curb, and cut through a median? Do it. Want to fly off the highway into the woods at 80 mph? Go right ahead. Drive hundreds of miles without seeing an inch of tarmac? Be my guest. I recently visited a place where you can more or less do the same.
Earlier this month, I was in Saudi Arabia to witness the Dakar Rally. I was invited by Land Rover, which entered three brand-new Defender Octa Dakar D7X‑R trucks in the Stock category. It actually won the class with Rokas Baciuška behind the wheel, and American Sara Price coming in a painfully close second place, almost becoming the first American woman to win the race. The third truck, driven by “Mr. Dakar,” Stéphane Peterhansel, finished fourth but led the leaderboard for most of the race, nearly securing an all-Defender podium.
If you’re not up to speed, this year’s version of the world’s most grueling off-road race sees 182 vehicles (and 253 racers) ranging from motorcycles, cars, heavy trucks, and SxSs traverse the Arabian peninsula over the course ot two weeks. Previously, it took place in South America, while the original version from the late ’70s kicked off in Paris, France, and finished in Dakar, Senegal.
It goes without saying that the terrain of the current Dakar Rally is extreme. In fact, it’s the most intense landscape I’ve ever witnessed, and it looks more like Mars than planet Earth. Because it was winter there, it wasn’t scorching hot, so my point-to-point expedition wasn’t completely miserable, but it did get pretty cold at times. Most mornings, I had to fire up the heated seats and steering wheel, as temperatures dipped to around 35 degrees overnight. Temperatures rose to about 75 degrees during the day, when I’d kind of break a sweat if I was fairly active, but otherwise it was a very pleasant time of year—something I’m sure all the racers appreciate as they race, camp, and pretty much live in the desert for half a month.
After spending some time with the race team in the Bivouac (paddock) and getting to see the camp, trucks, and crew up close, we ventured into the desert in a convoy of stock 2026 Defender 110s to traverse a variety of roads and trails from Hail to AlUla, though technically my trip started in Riyadh and concluded in Jeddah.
My first realization that the expedition was going to resemble something out of Forza Horizon came early, like, in the first 10 minutes of driving through the country. My driving partner, Nick Stecher, and I were at an intersection when I noticed a white Toyota Camry driver behind us, looking fairly impatient, pushing right up to our bumper and swerving as if he wanted to go around us and run the red light. We ignored him and waited for the light to turn green, and when it did, I set off—not quickly, but now slowly either—hoping to give the guy some room to pass if he wanted to. Well, he didn’t. Instead, he chose to ride our bumper as I approached the on-ramp to the highway, and that’s when he went full-on Forza Horizon on us.
Rather than wait until we were on the highway and pass me on either lane, he used the unpaved median separating the ramp from the highway, and drove for about 10 seconds on sand and rocks just to get past us. Sadly for him, the Defender’s inline-six has 395 horsepower, which is more than an old, beat-up Camry. Combined with the fact that we were on the tarmac and he wasn’t, it was easy for us to pull away and render his little off-road adventure useless. Or, at least, that’s what I thought.
As it turns out, he wasn’t trying to pass us; he was simply cutting across the street, median, and highway to reach the sizable highway divider (also made up of dirt and rocks), to drive across that, across three lines of incoming highway, and exit on the other side to continue onto some dirt trail that led to who knows where. That’s when I realized that no road, sign, or even common sense seemed to matter. If you needed to get somewhere and your vehicle could traverse it, you could just… go for it. Y’know, just like in Forza Horizon.
After that, I enjoyed three full days of video game-like driving, which I enjoyed way more than the actual game. I drove on highways that seemingly went on forever, and were so long and straight that they disappeared into the horizon (no pun intended). Without much notice, our expedition leader would chime into the two-way radios and say, “We’re going to turn off here and follow the car in front. Make sure to raise the suspension to its highest level.” And just like that, we’d simply turn the wheel and pull off into the desert and embark on a new trail, whether it meant turning to the right and simply exiting to the shoulder, or to the left and having to cross a median and then the opposite side of the highway—just like the Camry did before.
Through towering dunes as tall as buildings, gravel, stair-like rock formations, hard-packed sand—and sand so soft you immediately sank as soon as you stepped out of the car—the pack of Defenders soldiered on without any issues. In fact, the only mechanical issue that arose was that one DRL went out on one of the SUVs. That’s all, and that was after nearly 1,000 miles of bone-jarring off-road driving.
Like driving a German car on the Autobahn at 130 mph, it’s during those moments that you appreciate the level of expertise and detail that goes into every Land Rover. Not one infotainment glitch, not one electrical issue, not a minute or major snafu, everything worked as it should. Nick and I drove 10-plus hours a day over rough terrain at slow speeds, high speeds, and everything in between, all while enjoying a cold cabin (or warm depending on the time of day), heated (and cooled) seats, a cooled armrest compartment to keep our waters cold, GPS with loads of trail data, and Apple Carplay to keep the tunes goin’. Listen, Landies have a reputation for a reason, and I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise (although I’ve experienced more malfunctions with German press cars in the last few years than I have British), but I simply have nothing negative to report.
Much like the dozens of camels I came across, the Defender looked and felt at home in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. It enjoyed being in its element, flexing its complex traction-control system in the talc-like sand of AlUla and punishing its suspension on the washboard trails of Hail, rather than using the 360-degree camera to park at Starbucks or the local Orange Theory. And hey, no offense, I do all that stuff too, but these cars are built to do so much more.
I’d love to go back and explore some more, but for now, I guess I must settle for Forza Horizon.
Enjoy this video of some of my favorite moments of the drive.
Email the author at jerry@thedrive.com