How Ross Branch is trying to help put a new bike manufacturer on the World Rally-Raid map

Hero MotoSports Team Rally is the name of the motorsports effort organized by the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters – Hero MotoCorp – and the team for which rider Ross Branch competes for in the FIM World Rally-Raid Championship.

Seventh overall on a Hero 450 Rally machine at the recent 2,300 kilometer Sonora Rally in Mexico, the Batswana is now poised to make a run at the 2023 World Raid-Raid Championship.

Q: You’re competing in the 2023 FIM World Rally-Raid Championship and you recently participated in the Sonora Rally 2023 where you placed seventh overall. Can you tell us about the event?

ROSS BRANCH: We were in Mexico for round three of the World Rally-Raid Championship. We started in Hermosillo and we raced all the way up to the American border, which was incredible. It was round three. It was a big one. In Rally-Raid we only have five rounds of the World Championship, one of them being the famous Dakar Rally. Round three was good for us. We went out and we were top five and top 10 every day, which was good.

Obviously, I wanted to win the event, but unfortunately with Rally-Raid racing, you make one small mistake with the navigation and it puts you back a long way. I made a mistake on day one and lost a lot of time, so it was hard to catch up. Everybody is so on it now in Rally-Raid racing. It’s all like a 200-mile or 300-mile motocross race at the moment. Everybody is going so fast! All the guys are super-strong at the moment. It’s really good to be a part of that lead group, but it’s also really difficult to win races. The top 10 or top 20 guys can all win the races. We finished seventh overall, but I wanted to be on the top step, that’s for sure.

Q: Between all of the competing manufacturers – Honda, KTM, Husqvarna, Gas Gas and Hero – and all of the competing world class riders, the FIM World Rally-Raid Championship makes for a fiercely competitive battlefield, doesn’t it?

RB: For sure. It’s a huge war now, especially because of the Dakar Rally. if you’re a manufacturer and you come out of the Dakar Rally on top, it shows that your bike can go for 10,000 miles with no issues and is really strong. All of the manufacturers are putting everything they have into it. There are more manufacturers coming to the table as we speak. There are new manufacturers coming every day and I’m really proud to be a part of a semi-young team. It’s a new team to Rally-Raid racing and a new team to Dakar. The team I ride for is Hero Motorsports. It is a team from India. Yeah, I’m really proud and like I say, all of the manufacturers are putting everything they have into it and working really hard to be at the top of the Dakar Rally, as well as the World Championship.

Q: The Hero MotoCorp., Hero Motosports Rally Team that you’re now a part of is an absolutely fascinating effort. There is a masterplan at play with Hero and where they ultimately want to go in both the sport and the motorcycle industry, isn’t there?