With a season championship all but guaranteed, the plan was for Ox Motorsports/MSR lead rider Colton Udall to Ironman the 2016 Baja 1000 on the 1X bike. Meanwhile, Mark Samuels and Justin Jones would team up with Ray Dal Soglio on the matching 3X Honda CRF450X. However, just two days before the start of the race, a pre-running crash left Udall with a broken collarbone and put a quick end to the Ironman plan for the 49th Edition of the SCORE Baja 1000 on November 17-20. Despite a last minute change of plans, the result remained the same as the team not only defended their Baja 1000 title, but went 1-2!

“This year’s Baja 1000 came down to having an awesome team, a perfectly built CRF450X bike, perfect pit crews throughout the race, and every team member ready to adapt to the changes,” says Samuels. “This is a win I am very proud of that Colton and myself put together.”

“About three and a half hours after I crashed, we were already thinking about what our strategy was going to be for the race,” adds Udall. The makeshift plan came together as David Kamo, who had won three previous Baja 1000 titles with Udall, came out of retirement and Daymon Stokie moved up from the 3X bike to join Samuels and Jones. The 3X team became Ray Dal Soglio, Nic Garvin, Ryan Penhall and Ian Young.

“It is unfortunate that I crashed pre-running and broke my collarbone… this is the first time in nine years that I didn’t race the Baja 1000, but it turns out they didn’t need me,” joked Udall as 1X went on to a 36 minute win over 3X. The 1-2 punch gave Ox Motorsports the Overall and Unlimited Class wins for the fourth time in the past five years, and handed Honda its 26th overall SCORE Baja 1000 win in 49 tries!

“Until you get out on the course on race day, you don’t know what the Baja 1000 is like,” says team patriarch Brad Oxley. “It is beat up, chopped up, gnarly, hardcore and unforgiving!” Samuels admits to the added pressure of assembling the team two days before the race, “It was a very hectic, wide-open and crazy Baja 1000 for us!”

“Total domination,” says MSR Brand Manager Brent Harden. “Winning the Baja 1000 is a big deal to the MSR brand, going back to when Malcolm Smith won the very first Baja 1000 49 years ago and we are honored to be onboard with Team Ox for every kilometer of every SCORE race this season.”

Watch the Ox Motorsports/MSR team adapt and overcome to retain their Baja 1000 title: