EDITOR AT LARGE
MATTHEW NEUNDORF
“I guess I can. ” – Wouter-Jan Van Dijk
HAVE YOU EVER been watching a race – bikes, cars, trucks, any kind really – and thought, “I’d have a go at that”? And I don’t just mean that “it’d be a fun thing to try”, but that you believe you’d have the skills, abilities and fortitude to plop yourself into the starting grid, put in a respectable time and make it to the chequered flag. What if you had to cover all of the costs, had no pit crew, no GPS system, were riding a used motorcycle you’d just bought off of Craigslist and had to ride said bike from that point of purchase directly to that starting line over one thousand miles away? Wouter-Jan Van Dijk did just that when he entered this year’s Baja 1000. The Dutchman took on the task after a gentle nudge/suggestion from a friend who had competed in the race previously. Van Dijk sussed that he had enough enduro riding under his belt that it fell within the realm of possibility, and figured that the 1300- mile race across Baja sounded like fun, so he bought a plane ticket to San Diego. While definitely close in proximity to our favourite peninsula, San Diego is not Baja. More importantly, it’s nowhere near the starting line for this year’s race, which was at the southern tip in La Paz.
Unfazed, Van Dijk pointed his 21-inch front knobby south and (while other riders were pre-running the course, planning strategies and tuning their machines) started making tracks. Upon arrival at tech-inspection, Wouter’s bike was flagged as a no-go. The trip to La Paz had caused his tires to wear down to slick-like conditions and his subframe had cracked. Thankfully the racing community is a generous one, so a welder was found and some new hoops were scored allowing Wouter to start his Baja 1000 race, setting off under cover of night at 1:32 in the morning. If the preamble to the green flag isn’t enough to have earned your admiration, know that Wouter – while essentially navigating by the stars – was leading his class when he clocked in at the first checkpoint, some 370 kilometres later. At the next check-in just outside of Vizcaino, he had only lost one spot, sitting in second, roughly a minute behind the eventual class winner. Other problems arose – a rim bent so bad it could no longer hold air being a big one, a number of run-ins with Baja’s notorious Creeping Devil cactus – but Wouter found help was around whenever he needed it, pulling needles from his arm, feeding him tacos and zip-tying that rim so he could continue, often without having to even look. Forty-eight hours and twenty-seven minutes after setting off from La Paz, Wouter crossed the line in Ensenada to complete his first Baja 1000. He didn’t win – he finished in 7th of 9 riders in his class – but he took home a victory nonetheless. Congrats, Wouter! Thanks for reminding us to get off of the couch.
Author Matthew Neundorf
"The Dutchman took on the task after a gentle nudge/ suggestion from a friend who had competed in the race previously."
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