Toby Price wins ninth Finke Desert Race crown

Toby Price has won the Tatts Finke Desert Race for a ninth time, by taking his third straight victory in the Cars section of Australia’s blue riband offroad event.

As the four-wheel field continues to return to Alice Springs along the 226km track, Price and navigator Jason Duncan have been clocked at a time of 1:43:11.239s for Leg 2, making for a total race time of 3:21:46.628s in the #487 trophy truck.

At this stage, Greg Gartner is classified second outright and in the Extreme 2WD class, positions which are unlikely to change, while Travis Robinson is similarly third outright and first in Pro Buggy.

Price earned the right to lead the field down to Aputula (Finke) after setting the fastest time in the Prologue in Alice Springs on Saturday, by a margin of 2.257s over Beau Robinson (Extreme 2WD).

He put three-and-a-half minutes on the field once the first half of the race proper was done, laying down a time of 1:38:35.389s, with Travis Robinson his nearest rival at the overnight stop.

The margins were finer on the way back, with both Price and Gartner setting a hot pace.

In fact, the former fell just four tenths of a second short of the record event time which he set 364 days ago.

“To get my first win was a dream come true, and then to say I have nine [now] is wild,” said Price, whose other six ‘King of the Desert’ titles came on a KTM motorcycle.

“We had a really good run, the truck did an amazing job, my crew did an amazing job – without them, I wouldn’t be up here.”

Gartner was only 56.232s slower on the return leg, for an aggregate time of 3:27:48.880s which saw him improve from fourth overnight to second at the conclusion of Finke 2023.

Travis Robinson’s podium means he has extended his lead in the Polaris Motorsport Australia Offroad Championship, while Brent Martin missed the outright top three by less than 11 seconds but won the Prolite Buggy class.

Beau Robinson (Extreme 2WD) rounded out the top five, making up four positions after a crash on his way down to Aputula, with the rest of the top 10 being Shannon Rentsch (Pro Buggy), Mark Burrows (Pro Buggy), Phil Lovett (Extreme 4WD), Michael Dolan (Extreme 2WD), and Kent Battle (Pro Buggy).

The first Bike is due to reach Alice Springs at around 13:45 local time/14:15 AEST.

UPDATE: David Walsh wins Bikes

Round 4 of the Motorsport Australia Offroad Championship is the Loveday 400, on July 28-30.

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Toby Price is the King of the Desert 👑🏆

A superb performance leading from start to finish with navigator Jason Duncan 👏

This is Toby’s 3rd win in the cars and 9th in total! @tobyprice87 #FinkeDesertRace #Finke2023 pic.twitter.com/SFOkAn25MW

— TattsFinkeDesertRace (@FinkeDesertRace) June 11, 2023

Results: 2023 Finke Desert Race Top 10