Dakar alumnus Joey Evans to run Baja 1000 with Adaptive Sports Fund

Joey Evans has challenged many of the world’s toughest off-road races from the Dakar Rally to the Africa Eco Race, though it was not an easy road to get there. Now, he wants to add the Baja 1000 to his résumé.

In 2007, while competing in an off-road race in his home country of South Africa, Evans suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury when fell off his bike at the start and was run over by the rush of fellow competitors. The accident resulted in paralysis from the chest down and initial fears he would never be able to walk again. Despite the odds, he was riding again shortly after the turn of the decade.

By 2013, he was doing cross-country rallies and getting himself back in shape to pursue his dreams of the Dakar Rally, one that would be realised in 2017; racing the #132 bike, Evans finished ninety-third overall. Three years later, he tried his hand at the Africa Eco Race that followed the Dakar’s original Europe-to-Senegal route, where he finished the race even after crashing into a camel on the penultimate leg’s road section. He also has experience as a rally navigator, working with Terence Marsh in the South African Rally-Raid Championship in 2018.

Since the Dakar, Evans works as a public speaker and is the author of the bestselling book From Para to Dakar: Overcoming Paralysis and Conquering the Dakar Rally. He is also an adventure bike brand ambassador for KTM.

With two major rallies out of the way, he now intends to tackle Baja for the first time, riding in the Pro Moto Ironman category for solo riders. The effort will be in partnership with the Adaptive Sports Fund, a nonprofit focused on helping those with disabilities participate in sport; Evans will put the names of donors to his Baja 1000 fundraiser on his bike, though proceeds will go towards the ASF while Evans pays for racing expenses himself.

“I’m going to go and race the longest non-stop off road race in the world, the Baja 1000 held in Mexico, 1000 miles,” said Evans in a video posted on social media. “I’m going to be racing in the Ironman class, so doing the whole thing solo. As part of my campaign going forward, there’s going to be two sides to it: the first side is I’m going to cover a lot of the costs myself, but along with that, I’d love it if any corporates wanted to partner with me. That would be great, hit me up, let’s connect.

“But if you’re an individual and you’d like to support, I’d like to do something a little different to what I did when I when I raced Dakar. If you remember Dakar, I put names on my bike of everyone who had donated. This time, I would love it if you donated that money to the Adaptive Sports Fund. It’s a fun setup to help guys with spinal cord injuries to be able to participate in extreme sports. If you donate to Adaptive Sports Fund, I don’t care how much I will put your name on my bike.”

The fundraiser can be found here. As of this article’s publication, it has raised over eleven thousand rand (over €554).

Set for 12–17 November, the Baja 1000 is the final race of the 2024 SCORE International season. Nine of twenty-seven riders completed the 2023 edition in Pro Moto Ironman.