Daymon Stokie’s Debut Baja 1000

Finke front-runner, Daymon Stokie, survives his first Baja 1000 desert race … but not without incident!

“I’d always heard about it because it’s a bit of a pinnacle as far as desert racing goes,” says Alice Springs resident Daymon Stokie of the Baja 1000, arguably the oldest desert race in the world. So it didn’t take much convincing to get him to head to the most celebrated peninsula in Mexico for the 48th Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000, after three-time winner Colton Udall suggested it during his visit to Australia for the Tatts Finke Desert Race earlier this year. Udall runs the fledgling Ox Motorsports Honda desert racing team and in only two years, it’s become a major player in SCORE’s World Desert Championship.

Udall planned to ride with Justin Jones and Mark Samuels, so he put Stokie on the second Honda CRF450X that Samuels would also take a turn aboard; the other riders were Brian Adams (another Baja first-timer) and regular Ray Dal Foglio.

^ Finke veteran Daymon Stokie took Baja champ Colton Udall up on an invitation to race on the second Ox Motorsports Honda. Despite separating his shoulder on the first day of pre-running, he fared well and helped his team to a fourth bike Overall. Here, Stokie drops onto a section along the Pacific about 260km into the race.

Things didn’t go well for Stokie almost from the time he began pre-running his section about three weeks before the race (this year, a 1321km loop that started and finished in Ensenada). “I had a crash the first day pre-running and separated my shoulder, which meant I had to have a few days off before starting my pre-running again,” he said. “So I didn’t get as much in as I would’ve like to, but I made up for it.”

In addition, Stokie was assigned a different section to race than what he’d pre-run, taking the smoother beach section instead of San Felipe’s infamous whoops. “It was a bit easier on my shoulder,” the Aussie acknowledged.

^ Both Ox Motorsports squads celebrated at the finish. Not only had they gone 1-4 in the race, but they captured 1-2 in final series points, unofficially. From left are Ray Dal Soglio, Brian Adams, Mark Samuels and Daymon Stokie who rode the #3X Honda, and winners Justin Jones and Colton Udall who rode #5X (Samuels did double duty, with stints aboard both machines during the day).

As for the whole Baja experience, “It’s pretty crazy,” says Stokie. “It’s got a lot more unpredictable terrain than Finke. Finke’s the same course every year and it’s a lot shorter, too. It’s more of a sprint whereas Baja is more endurance and passing the bike on (to a teammate) so the pace is a bit more conservative and you can’t read the track as well; you have to be a bit more wary. There are lot more dangers here, too. There is a lot of the same kind of terrain, though, but it’s definitely a lot tougher over here, I reckon.”