STOKED ON DESERT

MY OLD MAN WAS ALWAYS INTO FINKE AND THE RACE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PRETTY BIG DEAL AROUND HERE

Looking in from the outside it would be easy to sit back and say Daymon Stokie was lucky to win the 2017 Finke Desert Race. However, it took less than one minute on the phone to the Alice Springs local to realise that his win is a truly great Australian sporting achievement.

Stokie in a lot of ways had everything stacked against him heading into the 2017 Finke Desert Race. No local had won the race in over ten years, he was racing on a new bike after signing on with the Active8 Yamaha squad for 2017, and Yamaha themselves had not won the race since 1986!

If that wasn't enough, the 26-year-old made things even tougher on himself after a crash while contesting a desert race in Western Australia left him with a hand injury that needed 14 screws and pins to put back together.

Despite all the odds stacked against him, the rider who was born in Hope, Victoria, crossed the line first. The win topped off an incredible 12 months that also saw him become the first Aussie to claim a win at the famous Baja 1000 race in Mexico.

Thanks for taking some time out to have a chat. I'm not going to lie, there is quite a lot I don’t know about you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into riding.

I was born in Hope, Victoria, but grew up and lived just across the border in South Australia in the rural town of Naracoorte until the age of seven, before