The Ford Ranger Raptor has broken a one-way record as it won its class in the 2023 Tatts Finke Desert Race.
Ford Performance entered the blue riband Australian offroad event in partnership with Walkinshaw Performance, fielding the same Kelly Racing-built vehicle which made its competition debut in last November’s Baja 1000.
Brad Lovell, who was part of that Baja effort, drove at Finke, navigated by son Byam.
They completed the opening leg, down to Aputula (Finke) in a time of 3:05:11.457s, almost an hour faster than the only other Production 4WD vehicle which successfully made it to the overnight stop.
On the way back, the Ranger clocked a new production record for a single leg of the Finke Desert Race, a 2:51:18.711s, meaning an aggregate time of 5:56:30.168s which was only five minutes slower than the two-leg record.
Speaking after their return to Alice Springs, Brad Lovell said, “Coming into this, I thought it was a fast rally race with some little whoops.
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“Seeing it torn up now, this is like San Felipe, Baja whoops. Great time, a lot of variation there, and at the end, we just started running, and we definitely got on top of some whoops that we have not before in the Ranger Raptor.
“But it took it – super-tough truck – we were charging hard at the end there. Happy to be back here at Finke.”
While there was less traffic for the return leg, the accumulation of vehicles running over the whoops made the 226km track even more treacherous.
“It definitely took everything we dished out for it,” added Lovell.
“The whoops out there are getting huge, so I don’t know how many suspension cycles there are per mile, but it’s got to be a record, and the Ranger Raptor pushed hard the whole time.”
It was not smooth sailing for the #773 Ford either, with Lovell, a champion offroad competitor, admitting to an error on his way out of the Alice on the afternoon prior.
“Yesterday, running out of Alice here, there’s a lot of silt at the top here and trees, and [the dust] was hanging in there,” he recounted.
“It was gnarly. At one point, I actually misread the trees and darted off-course, but it kind of helped me for the next turn, so no worries.”
As it stands, the Ranger Raptor is set to be classified 73rd outright but first in the Production 4WD class.
Toby Price won the Cars section outright in a trophy truck, while David Walsh was victorious in Bikes on a KTM.
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