Grabham and KTM team manager Brad Williscroft will fly out to Mexico on November 11 to prepare for one of the world’s toughest off-road motorsport events, the Baja 1000 in Mexico.

With the race to start on November 19 from the town of Ensinada, Grabham and Williscroft will spend a week researching and following the 1000 kilometre loop circuit that is expected to take the best part of half a day at least to conquer.

It will be Grabham’s first attempt at the event, but on the back of his achievements in other similar races like the Finke Desert Race and the Australian Safari, he is entitled to be confident of a strong showing.

“It is going to be huge,” he said.

“We’re going in a little bit blind, and we haven’t had time to have a good look at what we’re up against but I’m certainly looking forward to getting over there and giving it a go.

“I haven’t really set my goals for where I want to finish yet, I’ll probably wait until I get there and spend a bit of time having a look at the circuit before I do that.”

Grabham’s pedigree in desert racing is impeccable but he admits that he cannot set his sights too high until he has a better idea of what lies ahead.

“Once we get there, if I see the track and find that it suits us then yeah I will definitely be aiming to finish as high as possible,” he explained.

“I mentioned the possibility of giving this race a go maybe three or four years ago when I first started doing well at Finke but just haven’t had the opportunity.”

The race carries a reputation for treachery, even to the point where many of the local spectators set up their own obstacles on the course in the hope of seeing some action.

The race is also a physically taxing one, as riders swap over to do stints of up to two hours or thereabouts before climbing in the support vehicle to recharge, after which they take a quicker route than the active rider to the next changeover point and do it all again.