Toby Price begins a Baja adventure he hopes will lead to a full-time ride in the U.S. for 2014. Images: iKapture.

Motorex KTM Off-Road Team rider and passionate desert racer Toby Price will begin an exciting new phase of his racing career this weekend when he races in the 27th MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250, in Mexico.

The first in a series of three annual SCORE races which takes place on the famous Baja Peninsula, the San Felipe 250 starts and finishes in the town of the same name.

Almost 250 bike and car entries are expected to meet the starter for the 254-mile race on Saturday morning, including riders from 11 countries.

Among them, is Australia’s current Finke Desert Race and Australian Off-Road Racing Champion Toby Price – an unabashed fan of high-speed motorcycle racing.

The 250 is the first of three Baja visits he’ll make with the official factory KTM team in 2013 and he aims to impress with a view to attracting a full-time deal in 2014.

For the 250 he’ll partner with American factory KTM racer Mike Brown on a KTM 450SX-F, alongside the KTM team’s defending 250 champions Kurt Caselli and Ivan Ramirez. Price has been in Mexico for several days getting a feel for the event and the course.

“The race is going to be fast and rough,” said the 25-year-old from Maitland, NSW. “The track is dry and dusty so vision is going to be hard, and with four days of pre-running the trucks will pull a lot of rocks up and cover some of them, which may bring a lot of bikes unstuck.

“My job is to take over from Mike at Mile 148 and race to the finish at Mile 254. My section has a lot of different terrain from rocky creeks to sand whoops, hard pack and a few places to get a little lost so I’m hoping I can nail my lines and kill it for Brownie as we have a good chance for the podium.”

The course has three physical, full-stop checkpoints and 61 virtual checkpoints to help insure the safety and the integrity of a challenging race course.

“I’m feeling good,” said Price, “the bike is fast and I’m just trying to get my lines right so I’m ready to race. It’s a great place, definitely a good experience and my team mates love having a laugh. The spectators here are crazy though and they try get as close to the racers on the track as possible.”

Price will race with Class 22 (Pro Motorcycles 450cc or more) and will start 6am Saturday morning (3pm Sunday afternoon Qld) with one vehicle starting every 30 seconds.