Jerusalem, 18 November, 2025 (TPS-IL) — Alona Ben Natan is spending this week deep in the dunes of the United Arab Emirates, training ahead of one of the most demanding events on the global off-road calendar: the upcoming UAE Baja World Cup. It’s the final race of the world championship season, and the terrain — towering dunes, soft sand and disorienting uniformity — has already pushed the Israeli rider to her limits. Yet the challenge is exactly what brought her here.
Baja racing, she explained, is far more than simply riding fast. “This is a championship that we have in eight races during the year. Every race is in a different country and it’s navigating and also riding,” she told The Press Service of Israel. Competitors thread their way from waypoint to waypoint, making split-second route choices over hundreds of kilometers each day. “It’s all about navigation, focus and to ride very fast.”
For an Israeli athlete, the journey into this particular corner of motorsport is especially unlikely. The sport is small at home, lacks institutional support, and has only a handful of dedicated riders. Even fewer are women. “This sport in Israel is not that popular and we don’t have so many girls who are even racing,” she said. Through her rising profile, Ben Natan hopes to change that. “I want to increase the numbers. I want more girls to feel comfortable… and to race not only in Israel, but also in other countries and to feel safe.”
That desire to expand opportunities for women is central to her work on the Women’s Committee of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), the international governing body for motorcycle sport. She is also part of the parallel women’s framework within Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), which oversees four-wheel motorsport. “I’m here to empower other girls and women… whoever wants to achieve his goals and knows to dream big,” she told TPS-IL. Her appointment also marks a milestone for Israeli motorsport: she is the first Israeli woman to serve in a role dedicated to advancing women riders on the international stage.
Racing in the UAE and other Arab countries adds another layer of complexity for an Israeli competitor, though Ben Natan insists the community of riders is far more tight-knit than political narratives might suggest. “We’re like a circus going from rally to rally,” she explained. “I have friends also from Emirates, also from Morocco, from Europe, from Russia, from USA. We don’t talk about politics.” At times organizers ask her not to display Israeli symbols during the race for safety, but she added, “In the end, I can raise my flag and everything is fine.”
Her experience isn’t limited to polite coexistence. She has competed alongside Arab women as teammates, including in Morocco, where she and her co-pilot raced under the name “Daughters of Abraham.” The pair won their rally against 200 other teams. “It was a very big success. This is one of the examples that sports do connect people,” she said.
But the diplomatic angle of her presence abroad is matched by the physical and psychological trials of the races themselves. The UAE Baja is especially punishing. “It’s one of the toughest races because of the temperature and also because it’s all dunes. Like 90% is only dunes, sands,” she said. Riders accustomed to forests or rocky ground can easily become disoriented. “Every dune looks the same and you can be lost very, very fast.”
She recalled her first competition in Dubai, which pushed her to her breaking point. “It was super hot. I got my period the day before and I was exhausted,” she recalled. A marshal gave Ben Natan a Hamsa charm and told her to return it at the finish line. “And this is what happened… It was very empowering.”
Success in Baja racing, she stressed, depends on mental stamina as much as physical skill. “It’s not a sprint. It’s like a marathon. You are riding sometimes four or five, six hours a day,” she said. She keeps her focus narrow: “I just see myself in the end. First, you need to finish.” Her steady approach often gives her an advantage over faster riders who miss waypoints or crash. “It’s like a turtle and a rabbit.”
Now four years into her racing career, Ben Natan, now 36, hopes to continue at least through 2027, with an eye on the pinnacle of desert rallying. “I do want this year to race in bigger rallies. To collect the points to Rally Dakar,” she said. Getting there will require support and funding that are difficult to assemble in israel’s small motorsport scene.
For now, she is focused entirely on the dunes ahead, training under the brutal Emirati sun before the Nov. 20–23 World Cup.
“In the end, you need to trust yourself, stay calm and keep going,” Ben Natan said. “That’s how you finish.”
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