If you weren’t following the Baja 1000 this year, there’s one person you have to hear about: Wouter Jan Van Dijk. He’s a Dutchman living in Australia (with extensive off-road experience) that flew to California, bought a 2015 KTM 500 in San Diego, rode the bike down to La Paz, and then raced the Baja 1000 in the Ironman Class (as in, he rode the whole thing himself). No sponsors, no dedicated team, no pre-run, no GPS…it’s pretty stunning and worth knowing about!
When Wouter showed up for the tech inspection, his subframe was cracked (he believes due to the luggage he had when riding it down), and his tires were bald. Plus he was told he needed additional safety gear, but he was able to get everything sorted and started the race at 1:32 am.
Incredibly, he left his class early in the race but he had to stop frequently to figure out where he was as he did not have a GPS. As you can imagine, his story spread and he was able to get assistance from several camps – though he also stopped at plenty of OXXOs (Mexican convenience stores) to resupply. So many people plan for years for the Baja 1000 and tackle it with multiple co-riders, only to come up short for a variety of reasons. But this guy basically decided six months ago that he was going to try it and made it happen! By the end of it, his front tire was zip-tied to the front wheel as the latter was dented.
You can check out this story for additional details but if you have some time, I highly recommend you check out this interview and get the story straight from Wouter right after he finished!