For more than 13 years, Sonora Rally has helped build and shape the rally raid community in North America.
What began as a grassroots navigation rally in the Sonoran Desert grew into an internationally recognized event—bringing together first-time rally competitors, privateers, factory teams, Dakar veterans and some of the greatest names in the sport.
Through the years, hundreds of riders and drivers have learned Dakar-style navigation on Sonora roadbooks, raced their first rally, sharpened their skills in the dunes and, for some, taken the next step toward the Dakar Rally.
Sonora Rally became more than an event.
It became a training ground, a proving ground and a genuine pathway to Dakar.
Professionals want more technical, more demanding routes.
Privateers need an event that better fits the realities of work, family, time and budget.
Future rally racers need a clear, approachable and affordable way into the sport.
And rally raid needs all three. Starting in 2027, Sonora Rally evolves.
The new Sonora Rally is a concentrated three-day rally raid based in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora—just south of the U.S. border.
What hasn’t changed is what matters most:
Professional organization – Technical navigation – Serious competition – The Sonoran dunes – The spirit of rally raid.
Sonora Rally’s relationship with Dakar goes far beyond sharing the same style of racing.
For nearly 10 years, Sonora Rally has been North America’s only Road to Dakar event, providing an official pathway for eligible competitors pursuing the dream of racing the Dakar Rally. The program offers a PAID Dakar entry for the qualifying winner of the SSV/UTV “Road to Dakar”, while motorcycle competitors have been able to earn six points toward Dakar eligibility through Sonora. But the pathway is about more than points or prizes.
For years, Sonora has given North American competitors something incredibly difficult to find close to home:
Competitors have come here to learn. They have come here to train. They have come here to prove themselves.
And many have left Sonora headed toward the biggest rally in the world.
In 2023, Sonora Rally reached an extraordinary milestone when it joined the FIA/FIM World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) alongside events including the Dakar Rally, Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, Desafío Ruta 40 and Rallye du Maroc.
It marked the first time the World Rally-Raid Championship came to North America, placing the Sonoran Desert on the same international championship calendar as some of the most legendary rally raid terrain in the world.
The world’s leading factory teams and competitors came to Sonora to race—including names such as Sébastien Loeb, Nasser Al-Attiyah and other championship contenders.
For our organization, our competitors and the communities that welcomed us year after year, it represented the culmination of more than a decade of building rally raid in Mexico and North America.
Long before factory teams, sophisticated technology and world championships, rally raid was about puro adventure—traveling to remote places, navigating unknown terrain and experiencing parts of the world few people ever see.
That spirit is still very much alive in Sonora.
Giant dunes. Desert ranches. Small fishing villages. The Sea of Cortez. Remote communities and endless horizons. Sonora still carries the feeling of the wild, unexplored and untapped landscapes that defined the great rally raids of the past.
But we don’t want competitors simply to race through Sonora. We want them to experience it.
That means breaking bread with local chefs and families, drinking locally brewed beer, meeting fishermen, ranchers, cowboys, musicians and artisans, and experiencing the history and traditions of the Comcaac (Seri) people.
This isn’t staged culture. The exchange is real.
Some of the best rally memories happen after the racing stops—around a table, at the bivouac, over a cold beer, sharing stories with people you might never otherwise have met.
The roadbook takes you into the desert. The competition pushes you. The dunes humble you.
But the adventure is what stays with you.
For 13 years, Sonora Rally has connected competitors with a part of Mexico many would never otherwise experience—and with the people who make it extraordinary. Because rally raid has always been about something bigger than racing.
The 2027 Sonora Rally is concentrated in the massive dune fields of the Altar Desert—one of North America’s great dune environments. Majestic, constantly changing and completely unforgiving, the dunes create the ultimate contest: competitor vs. machine vs. sand.
Excitement. Adrenaline. Confidence. Frustration. Exhaustion. Triumph. The dunes deliver all of it.
A dune field is alive—wind continually reshapes the terrain, erasing tracks and creating new faces, bowls, ridges and hazards. Learning to read the sand, navigate it and ultimately conquer it is an experience unlike almost anything else in motorsport.
And there’s a reason Sonora has become such an important training ground for competitors with Dakar ambitions: big dunes, off-piste navigation and constantly changing sand mimic the skills and challenges demanded by the most prestigious rally raid in the world—the Dakar Rally.
