RALLY 101: TACKLING THE 2025 SONORA RALLY

By Brandon Krause, Photos by Westx1000

If you’ve ever wanted to race while simultaneously working at being the least amount of lost possible, rally raid might be the discipline for you. While obviously not a new form of racing, with rally raid competition dating back as early as events like the 1907 Peking to Paris Rally, the sport has grown and captured more and more attention in the United States due to the recent success of Americans Mason Klein, Skyler Howes, and now two-time Dakar Rally winner Ricky Brabec. Other Americans journeyed into the realms of rally long before these three; riders such as Jonah Street, Jimmy Lewis (third place at the Dakar in 2000), Chris Blais (third place at the Dakar in 2007), Paul Krause (aka Dad; he’d be mad if I didn’t mention him), and a handful of others who have gone to take on the world’s gnarliest desert race. 

Despite all the Americans who have found their way over to Africa, South America and now Saudi Arabia, rally racing hasn’t been all that accessible to riders from the United States until very recently. As I’ve heard through stories from ol’ PK, there have been a scant handful of events throughout the years, like the Nevada Rally, that would incorporate the roadbook-directed course into their race, but nothing really more than that. 

In the last 15 years, rally has gotten a lot closer to home with the creation of a number of events. The Sonora Rally in Mexico, in particular, has gained massive traction through its proximity. It has also given competitors a chance to win free entries into the Dakar Rally and was even on the circuit of the FIM World Rally Raid Championship back in 2023. For me, I’ve had the interest to somehow make my way to the Dakar Rally since my dad went back in 1998 and 2004. With that dream seemingly more obtainable now with today’s resources, I decided to attend the 2025 Sonora Rally to test out the rally raid waters.

The riding itself is excellent in this part of Mexico. It isn’t over-ridden like many racecourses.

RALLY PRIMER

So you’ve decided you’re going to go rally racing. What now? The first step would be preparing your steed. One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve heard is, “Oh, I don’t have a rally bike, so I can’t do that.” To learn the art of rally navigation at a base level, all you need is a roadbook reader, some sort of heading indicator, an odometer and a bike with a big generator to power it all. A stock dual-sport bike or any bike with a rewound stator for headlights will more than likely have enough power to do this. 

Companies like the RallyMotoShop have become the perfect one-stop shop for rally beginners and experts alike for everything you need to get going, from the navigation equipment and bike parts to let you go the longer distances to rally gear like jackets, vests, and pants. For me, my foundation was a 2024 KTM 450XCF-W. From there, the basic parts I added were the IMS 4.5-gallon fuel tank, some Dunlop mousses (FM21L front and FM18D rear), Dunlop AT82 90/100-21 front tire, and Dunlop D739AT 120/100-18 rear. 

For navigation, I went the more modern route with a digital roadbook reader called the ICO TowerOne. The TowerOne is a purpose-built tablet for rally racing and navigation, but there are plenty of others who have utilized iPads, Samsung tablets and even just their phones to be able to follow a route. The biggest reason I went with the ICO was for its simplicity and all-in-one package. With the TowerOne complete bike kit, it comes with everything you need to go rally racing: the TowerOne roadbook reader with GPS antenna and beeper (the beeper notifies you of speed zones, waypoints, dangers and any other important notifications that can be programmed into the roadbooks); the necessary mounting hardware, including the handlebar clamps that would connect the roadbook reader to my bike; the five-button handlebar switch to control the roadbook system; and a power switch. 

Now, this is basically all you will need to follow a roadbook on your own or with your buddies. But for racing, there are a few more things to take into account. The 2025 edition of the Sonora Rally had a route of a little more than 2000 kilometers over five days, with more than half of it being actual race stages, and the rest being liaison (transit) to and from the bivouacs. 

In order to get through the week in Mexico, I packed a total of four sets of wheels, tires and mousses, prepped five air filters, plenty of Maxima Pro Plus+ for oil changes every day other than the marathon stage and, just in case, an extra bike to use for spare parts. Top that off with a few changes of gear to get me through five days of racing, a tent and sleeping bag for the marathon stage, and meal-prepped baggies of gummy bears to carry with me for a mid-race snack, and I was set for my first rally.

Some of the most demanding navigational challenges seem to happen shortly after the start of each stage.

THE UNKNOWN

Since rally was (really still is) all new to me, I had zero expectations going into the week. I had no clue how the registration process would work, I wasn’t sure where I would even stack up compared to some of the other racers that had done the event before, and even though I had read a roadbook for the first time a week prior, I was unsure I’d really know how to navigate. I

 knew in terms of speed I would stack up pretty well against some of the other guys, but that doesn’t mean anything. Look at a kid like Mason Klein, who’s young and relatively inexperienced. In rally, he can find himself going toe to toe with the likes of Ricky Brabec, who is the one of the fastest desert racers in the world. Mason might not be as fast, but he definitely knows how to read new terrain and has spent a lot of time mastering navigation. 

That being said, I was very nervous for day one. The first day began in Caborca, Mexico, with a short liaison that took us to the start of the stage. We started in a straight rocky wash that quickly spit us out onto a road. Down the road, past a concrete pole, across a wash and right onto another road. Easy enough, right? Well, six minutes into this rally and I was already 30 minutes lost. Back and forth I went from where I lost my way at the previous waypoint, retracing my steps, and seeing where I went wrong. Eventually, a group of us got together and decided this flattened path must be the road, even though it didn’t resemble one from where we were sitting. Luckily, we chose correctly, and off we went but already way behind on time. 

Lesson one: Things don’t always appear as you may think or as you’re used to. A road in the middle of Mexico can be like nothing you’ve seen before. This was helpful moving forward in the week, now being able to keep an open mind of what could be the correct path and what definitely isn’t. 

For the most part, day one went smoothly from there on out. We got a little glimpse at some dunes, and we even ripped up a Mexican beach for like 15 kilometers. I haven’t mentioned it already, but this is my first time in Mexico, so getting to ride on the beach was a whole new experience that I had heard of before but had never gotten to do for myself. 

I had another navigation error in the last few miles of the stage, but nothing as dramatic as the one at the beginning. Except for my 27 minutes of speeding penalties, which were much easier to come by than I was expecting. Back onto the road we went to the same bivouac we left that morning for some food, sleep and to do it all again the next day.

The marathon stage presented the riders with an overnight stay in pup tents.

SETTLING IN

Day two, we once again started in Caborca, transferring back to where we finished the day before and then racing up the coast to Bahia de Kino. After learning our lesson on day one, I was much more attentive to my roadbook, its notes and how to read them. As soon as I started feeling a good flow and felt like I was getting the hang of things, I hit a wall. More specifically, a fence. Two fences, actually, which should have been my clue that I was going the wrong way. Through the two fences I went, through the desert across another few kilometers to where the next note should be, but things didn’t seem right. I needed to make a turn, but no turn was possible. 

Despite a family legacy that is steeped in Baja lore, the Sonora Rally presented Brandon Krause with his first riding experience in Mexico.

Lesson two: In rally, your odometer will never be completely correct. These courses are likely laid out using Google Earth, so the lines from point A to point B are as straight as the crow flies, not as your motorcycle rides. As a result, you could be off by tenths of a kilometer, or, in the dunes, you might be several kilometers off by the time you reach your destination. In this case, I knew I was not on track. Here we go again, back to the last waypoint at the double fence. By then, I had several other riders with me, and the group was growing. We went out and returned a few more times before realizing that we must have been looking at the note’s picture incorrectly. 

Setting up a bike for rally is fairly specialized when it comes to instrumentation, but under it all, you have to have a bike that’s set up to go far and fast.

The cool part about these roadbooks is that most of these notes, depending on whoever built the book, are accompanied by a small diagram of generic symbols to indicate landmarks, terrain changes, types of dirt and vegetation, and all sorts of different things to help you confirm you are where you’re supposed to be. This was key at this double fence, because the roadbook only indicated we should be going through one fence, and up until this point, the roadbook had been very specific when we were crossing these sorts of things.

Within the Krause family, there’s no shortage of advice.

Lesson three: Pay close attention to those diagrams, because they tell you more than you first think. When you get lost like this, it’s like being in an escape room trying to figure out the next clue. With this in mind, we scoured the perimeter of the fence line until we finally found the correct gate—one gate-—that led our group (now 10 or 15 of us) the correct way. The rest of the day went pretty easily from then on out, at least until I reached the bivouac at the end of the stage. Although I had a fairly decent day, when I reached the checkpoint after crossing the day’s finish, my time said I had received 14 hours of penalties. For what?! I had no idea what I had done wrong. Other than the misdirection earlier in the day, I didn’t speed, and my roadbook cleared all of the waypoints; I had seemingly done nothing wrong! 

Brandon Krause is hoping this will be a launching pad for a trip to the Dakar Rally.

Lesson four: The Rally Comp is your guide for the week, your instructor. This is a device you carry to monitor your compliance. If it says stop, you stop. If it says you missed a waypoint, you missed a waypoint. Throughout the five days, occasionally there would be mandatory stops, requiring racers to come to a complete halt, wait for a five-second countdown, and then be directed to go. If any one waypoint isn’t cleared, the Rally Comp would be unable to clear any subsequent waypoints for the remainder of the day until that one is sorted out. In my case, one waypoint was never found or skipped per a button located on the device, so I missed the subsequent 28 waypoints, resulting in 30 minutes of penalties for each one, for a total of 14 hours. 

“Ridiculous! My roadbook showed that I cleared every waypoint!” I contested. This was a mistake on both my part and partially the organization’s, as they meant to deactivate the ICO TowerOne’s ability to show cleared waypoints to eliminate any confusion and to ensure we were paying attention solely to the Rally Comp’s directions. Luckily, my ICO and the GPS tracker that they have us carry for safety shows that I followed the rest of the course, so 13 of those hours were eventually eliminated. That left only two of the penalties. Oh well, onto day three.

Racing is racing. You can easily get carried away and miss an important waypoint.

HOME STRETCH

The final three days of the rally were the best for me personally. I received only two minutes of speeding on day three, but the rest was a breeze. Day three was actually our longest of the five days and the longest in Sonora Rally history with a 380-kilometer stage. I was able to finish second, and that required me to start second out on day four. That was not only our first day of dunes, but our first day of the marathon stage, which meant once we left the paddock Thursday morning, we would not be able to receive outside help until we got back to the bivouac the next day, which was the end of the rally anyway. Before even getting to the dunes, though, we had over 100 miles to ride, so the monkey butt was real.

In the dunes, I was almost immediately lost. Navigating roads is one thing, but when you’re traversing unknown terrain with hardly any tracks to follow was a tough thing to do for a first-timer. It was all a bit too much for me to take in on the fly, so I did what’s frowned upon and just followed the tracks ahead of me, making sure not to miss any waypoints. 

“I’ll learn this another day when I’m not racing,” I told myself. Once we were done with day one of the dunes, it was off to the campsite for a night in the tent. This was the first time the Sonora Rally had included a marathon stage, so they were pretty lenient on what we could bring with us, so it wasn’t too rough. A little bag with whatever we wanted in it, a fresh air filter and some snacks; it was almost like nothing was different from the rest of the week. 

Riding on the beach isn’t something that most American riders have experienced.

Day five was basically identical to day four, just our long road ride was after all the dunes and not afterwards. I was able to navigate the dunes a bit better, but I was still definitely not comfortable enough without the leader’s tracks ahead of me.

When all was said and done, I earned myself fifth overall for the entirety of the rally, stayed within the top four on the final three days, and even won the Dreams of Dakar subdivision, which offers support for the 2026 Dakar Rally, giving the winner $10,000 towards the entry fees for the event! 

For a first-time rally racer, this was an incredible experience that I would recommend to anyone who has ever been interested in rally, whether they want to go to Dakar someday or simply just want a fun road trip through the desert. If you ask guys like Ricky, Skyler and Mason, even they praise the rally for its overall setup and quality, and attend when they are able to. For me, it’s time to start reading as many roadbooks as possible between now and January, and spend a lot of time not getting lost in the desert.