 |  |
by Colton Udall
I was six years old the first time Baja got under my skin, and it never really left.
My family traveled to Mexico often. My dad had been making surf trips south of the border since he was a young man, chasing swells down the coast. My mom had her own deep pull toward the peninsula, and it was her love for Baja that shaped my teenage years more than anything. San José del Cabo, Punta Chivato, Rosarito: these weren't vacation spots to us, they were a way of life. A different pace. A different air.
My first real taste of the peninsula came on a trip down to Punta Chivato for a family wedding. We camped under the stars, played beach games in the sand, and spent our days exploring coves and coastlines that felt like they belonged to us alone. We surfed small wind swell and snorkeled the stunning waters of the Bay of Conception. I didn't know it then, but something was being planted in me. A pull toward that wild, open place that would only grow stronger with time.
As I got older, Baja started to mean something different to me. I wasn't just a kid tagging along on family trips anymore. I was a young man chasing the feeling that Baja alone seemed to offer: freedom, the unknown, and the raw beauty of a place that doesn't ask anything of you except that you show up and respect it.
For someone who grew up riding motorcycles, the next logical step was obvious. Testing my skills on a bike through that terrain, the desert, the mountains, the whoops, that was the ultimate challenge. And challenges are what I live for.
My first race came in 2007. I was 21 years old, wide-eyed and hungry, when Cameron Steele invited me to race on a team he'd put together. I wasn't just a rider on that team. I was deep in the mechanical prep too, wrenching on the bike right alongside everyone else. I was proud of that. I wanted to earn every mile.
Baja had other ideas.
Early in the race, our bike took on water. We smoked the clutch. We hemorrhaged time learning what every Baja veteran already knows: this peninsula will humble you, and it will do it on its own schedule. But when that bike finally rolled into La Purisima the next morning, I climbed on and rode 180 miles through the rugged, spectacular mountains of Loreto, looping back through the monster whoops of Santa Rita, with an engine that wouldn't idle and couldn't rev. No excuses. No bail-out. I finished. That broken-down, barely-running motorcycle turned out to be the best set of training wheels I ever had. Baja broke me in the right way.
I was back in 2008 for the San Felipe 250, and this time I came ready. I ran 2-4 minutes off the lead pace in multiple sections, consistent, clean, and composed. That was enough to catch the eye of Johnny Campbell, the King of Baja himself, and the man behind American Honda's off-road race program, JCR Honda.
I don't take that lightly. Johnny Campbell is a legend. When someone like that watches you race and sees something worth believing in, you don't waste it.
In 2009, I signed my first career contract as mechanic/racer with JCR Honda. I had worked, scraped, and earned that opportunity. It was the chance of a lifetime, and I knew it.
My first win, and honestly still my most memorable race experience, came at the 2010 San Felipe 250. I raced as a three-person team alongside Jeff "Ox" Kargola, and nobody gave us a shot. Ox was a freestyler. I was a beach kid from San Clemente who split his time between the ocean and the desert. We weren't the obvious favorites. We weren't supposed to win.
The day before the race, I rode the final 10 miles into the finish line alone, just me and the desert. I wasn't scouting. I was seeing it. I visualized the race, almost like dreaming with my eyes open. I saw myself crossing that finish line in first place. I felt it before it happened.
The next day, it happened.
I crossed the finish line and won my first SCORE event. I had tasted glory, real, hard-earned glory that nobody could give me and nobody could take away. That moment was the product of years of sacrifice, early mornings, late nights, and more than a few beatdowns from Baja herself. It meant everything.
Eighteen years of racing and traveling Baja have reshaped how I see the world. Every mile has been a lesson. Every breakdown, every blown tire, every night spent in the desert fixing something by headlamp, it all adds up to something that can't be taught in a classroom.
Baja teaches you patience. It teaches you humility. It teaches you to be resourceful, to be present, and to never, ever, underestimate the land you're riding through. The learning genuinely never ends, and that's exactly why I keep coming back.
The adventure is evolving: I just finished the NORRA Ironman, taking first place overall.
Now I'm competing in the Baja Rally, pushing myself in new directions, exploring new formats and new challenges. And I'm bringing my kids along for the ride, literally. I want them to feel what I felt at six years old standing on the shores of the Bay of Conception. I want them to grow up understanding that Baja isn't just a place on a map. It's a relationship.
I'm also passionate about helping others discover it safely. Too many people are intimidated by the idea of traveling to Baja, and I understand why. But with the right preparation and the right mindset, it is one of the most extraordinary experiences available to anyone willing to make the drive south. My mission now is as much about opening that door for others as it is about my own racing.
The peninsula gave me my career. It gave me some of the greatest moments of my life. And after all these years, it still has more to teach me.
Baja wasn’t done with me yet. Some decisions change everything. This one happened over lunch with my wife.
I'd been eyeing the NORRA’s Baja 1000 and the ironman for some time. It felt like the final achievement of my desert racing career and the summation of all the skills and talents I’d developed over the years.
CRFSONLY, AHM Factory Services, and Baja Bound were all a quick yes on sponsorships, and I'm grateful for that. They are genuine supporters of this sport and the people in it, and that kind of backing makes everything possible.
The bike situation was a story in itself. I had one half-apart in my garage that wasn't even mine. It had been left in my care with the hope I'd eventually sell it. My wife and I came up with a better idea: win the race on the bike, then raffle it instead of selling it. That plan had a certain poetry to it.
The build came together fast because it had to. NORRA came quick, and I'll be honest, I've never shown up to a race less prepared or less familiar with a motorcycle than I was for this one. But I made it work. I adapted, I pushed, and every single day I was met with pristine Baja roads that the NORRA organization had dialed in perfectly. Their attention to the course is something special.
We won best overall time.
That result was more than a trophy. It was a confirmation. Rally racing is where I'm headed, and this race made that clearer than ever. The format, the navigation, the long days in the saddle reading the road ahead, it all speaks to me in a way that feels like the next chapter of everything Baja has been building in me since I was six years old.
