Aldon Baker has been involved in the motocross industry since 2000 when he started training Ricky Carmichael.
He has since expanded to having his own training facility and training multiple riders at the same time. For this article I’ll be focusing on his rider’s success in 450 Motocross.
I made the same article for Supercross that you can read here.
The statistics in this article are updated through the first three rounds of 2024 Motocross season.
Here are Baker’s riders Championship finishes each year since 2000:
| Year | Championship Finish | Rider | Notes |
| 2000 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2001 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2002 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2003 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2004 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2005 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2006 | 1st | Ricky Carmichael | |
| 2007 | 6th | Ricky Carmichael | Carmichael raced part time at six of 12 rounds in 2007 |
| 2008 | 1st | James Stewart | |
| 2009 | N/A | James Stewart | James Stewart did not race Motocross in 2009 |
| 2010 | 35th | James Stewart | Stewart raced 1 round in 2010 |
| 2011 | 1st | Ryan Villopoto | |
| 6th | Jake Weimer | ||
| 2012 | 3rd | Jake Weimer | |
| N/A | Ryan Villopoto | Villopoto was out injured for the whole 2012 MX Season | |
| 2013 | 1st | Ryan Villopoto | |
| 6th | Jake Weimer | ||
| 2014 | 1st | Ken Roczen | |
| 2015 | 1st | Ryan Dungey | |
| 6th | Jason Anderson | ||
| 2016 | 3rd | Marvin Musquin | |
| 14th | Jason Anderson | Anderson missed 8 rounds due to injury | |
| 17th | Ryan Dungey | Dungey missed 9 rounds due to injury | |
| 2017 | 2nd | Marvin Musquin | |
| 10th | Jason Anderson | Anderson missed 5 rounds due to injury | |
| 2018 | 2nd | Marvin Musquin | |
| 17th | Jason Anderson | Anderson missed 8 rounds due to injury | |
| 2019 | 3rd | Marvin Musquin | |
| 4th | Jason Anderson | ||
| 5th | Zach Osborne | Osborne missed 1 round due to injury | |
| 6th | Cooper Webb | Webb missed 2 rounds due to injury | |
| 2020 | 1st | Zach Osborne | |
| 4th | Marvin Musquin | ||
| 26th | Cooper Webb | Webb missed 8 rounds due to injury; 9 round series in 2020 | |
| 2021 | 4th* | Cooper Webb | Webb trained with Baker for the first 4 rounds |
| 7th | Marvin Musquin | Musquin missed 3 rounds due to injury | |
| 26th | Zach Osborne | Osborne missed 10 rounds due to injury | |
| 2022 | 7th | Aaron Plessinger | |
| 19th | Malcolm Stewart | Stewart missed 8 rounds due to injury | |
| N/A | Cooper Webb | Cooper Webb did not race Motocross in 2022 | |
| 2023 | 3rd | Aaron Plessinger | |
| 12th | Cooper Webb | Webb missed 7 rounds due to injury | |
| N/A | Christian Craig | Craig did not race Motocross in 2023 | |
| N/A | Malcolm Stewart | Stewart did not race Motocross in 2023 |
That’s 13 Championships in 23 years from 2000-2023 (23 years instead of 24 as I am not counting 2009 as Baker had no trained athletes compete that year).
2022 is the only year where Baker had a rider fail to finish top 3 in the series if they raced all the rounds in the series. (2021 would also count for this but Cooper Webb only trained with Baker for 4 of the rounds.)
Overall Wins and Podiums
Since 2000, Aldon Baker has had at least one (and up to 4 at times) actively trained rider(s) present at 253 Outdoor Nationals, his rider’s have won 126 overalls – good for a 49.80% win rate!
Ricky Carmichael counts for 76 of the 126 overall wins (60.32% of the wins).
After the Carmichael years of 2000-2007, since 2008, Baker’s has 50 wins at 165 races – a 30.30% win rate.
The average overall finish including ALL of his riders from 2000-present is 4.49. When only factoring in the best result from each round this drops to: 2.76
For perspective, Eli Tomac’s career overall finish average is 2.93.
At these 253 races, one of Baker’s riders has finished on the podium at 200 of them (79.05%).
Only counting races where Baker had a rider present, from round 1 in 2000 through the end of the 2011 season, Baker never went back to back Motocross races without a rider on the podium.
This then happened again from round 1 2013 through round 5 in 2016. And then again from round 8 in 2016 through the end of 2020.
So overall, from 2000 through 2020, Baker’s riders failed to podium in back to back rounds just 8 times. 5 of these were in 2012 when Jake Weimer was his only active healthy rider (sorry Jake!).
Motos
In the 506 total motos with a trained rider present, Baker’s riders have tallied 243 moto wins – a 48.02% rate.
However, 141 of these wins were from Ricky Carmichael (58.02%).
His moto win rate without Ricky Carmichael is 102 out of 330 (30.91%).
For Motos, including ALL his riders results, the average moto finish is 4.94
Taking just the best results each moto, this drops to 3.00.
Comparing Riders training without and with Aldon Baker
Reminder: this is just looking purely at the numbers. This obviously leaves out a lot of context such as a rider’s experience, age, competition, health status, bike quality, team quality, etc.
Each rider will be covered in chronological order.
Ricky Carmichael
For RC, there is actually nothing to compare. All of his Motocross seasons were while he trained with Aldon Baker.
James Stewart
James Stewart only has his perfect season of 2008 and his one off race appearance at Unadilla 2010 that were under Baker’s training. A small sample size to compare. I was a little surprised to see his figures without Baker. His 10.89 average is pretty low for a rider of Stew’s caliber. Looking through the data though, Stewart was very inconsistent outdoors – especially early. In his first 12 career 450 Motocross races, his average overall finish was 16. He crashed out and DNFd in 5 of these races.
Ryan Villopoto
Ryan Villopoto had just two career 450 Motocross races without Aldon Baker. His 2009 moto scores were 1-1-16-38. His overall win percentage is technically higher when without Baker, but I don’t put anything towards that. It is pretty wild that RV only had two healthy seasons outdoors and won both titles. In 2011, the title went to the final round with Ryan Dungey and then he was pretty dominant in 2013.
Jake Weimer
Jake Weimer only had 8 career 450 motocross races without Baker – another small sample size unfortunately. Weimer raced professionally through 2018, but didn’t race Pro Motocross after 2014.
Ken Roczen
Once again, a small sample size to compare with. Ken Roczen spent just one year training with Aldon Baker outdoors, winning the title in 2014 as a rookie. Roczen’s numbers are very impressive after 2014, but don’t reach the same averages of 2014, even with another title season in 2016.
Ryan Dungey
Ryan DungeyRyan Dungey spent his first 5 outdoor seasons without Aldon Baker. In 2015, he started training with Baker and won the title in 2015 and raced a few rounds in 2016 before injury. Once again a small sample size to compare (don’t worry there are two riders coming up with a lot of races with and without Baker!). Dungey’s 2022 comeback season stats are included in this. If you are wondering if any of the stats would be better excluding 2022, only his moto podium % is higher. Even with how insanely consistent Dungey was in his career, he was even more consistent with Aldon Baker.
Jason Anderson
Finally a rider with plenty of races to compare! Anderson’s stats are very similar with and without Baker. However, they are just slightly better without!
Marvin Musquin
Nothing to compare for Marvin Musquin as his whole 450 Outdoor career was with Aldon Baker as his trainer.
Zach Osborne
Nothing to compare for Zacho as well as his whole 450 Outdoor career was with Aldon Baker as his trainer.
Cooper Webb
Cooper Webb has a good amount of races to compare. Unlike Anderson whose stats were slightly better without Aldon Baker, Cooper Webb’s are slightly better with Aldon Baker as his trainer.
Malcolm Stewart
Back to small sample sizes. Malcolm Stewart started training with Aldon Baker when he moved to factory Husqvarna in 2022. He has dealt with injuries the last few years only racing seven outdoor races. Its hard to compare, especially when Mookie’s other 450 Outdoors stats from 2013-2014 are eight years apart from his recent results.
Aaron Plessinger
Aaron Plessinger’s number drastically improve while training under Aldon Baker. AP has been far more consistent when training with Baker as well.
As of this writing, Christian Craig only has three races with Aldon Baker so far, so its pretty impossible to compare anything here. Didn’t realize how many 450 Motocross races Craig has competed in over the last 15 years though.
Despite the various sample sizes, it is consistent that the riders almost entirely have better figures while training with Aldon Baker during the outdoor season. Jason Anderson is the only exception to this with a large enough sample size.
While Aldon Baker rider’s have not been as successful as the Carmichael, Stewart, Villopoto years recently, it still appears to be a huge positive being on his program for the majority of riders.
Thanks for reading! Any questions, hit me up on Twitter or Instagram: @MXReference
