Can-Am

In the wake of teammate ‘Chaleco Lopez’

At 57, Thomas Bell is now running South Racing’s United Arab Emirates arm. The Dubai resident started racing rally-raid with his own with team, making his Dakar debut in 2019. Then, when the Dakar moved to Saudi Arabia the following year, South Racing called upon the assistance of Thomas’ Sabertooth Motoring Adventure, which they ended up buying out. On the 2021 Dakar Thomas helped out with the running of Scott Abraham’s outfit before getting back behind the wheel in 2022. 10th in T3 on the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge for his fourth entry, with his new co-driver Bruno Jacomy, Thomas finished 7th on his third Dakar last January in the lightweight prototype class. The association between the Brit and the Argentinian came about while Bruno was racing his first round of the FIA World Cup on the Andalucía Rally in 2021. Currently 6th in the W2RC T3 rankings with 25 points, tying with Camelia Liparoti (Yamaha), the South Racing Middle East crew are the second-best placed members of the team behind ‘Chaleco’ Lopez, the category leader after his Dakar victory ahead of Cristina Gutiérrez and Seth Quintero (Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team). The Anglo-Argentine pairing could yet prove precious support for the Chilean with Lopez (at 90 points) just ahead of the two Overdrive OT3s of the Spaniard (72 points) and the American (63 points).