West Australian brothers Travis Robinson and Beau Robinson will start the 2025 Tatts Finke Desert Race from first and second respectively after resounding runs in Saturday morning’s Method Race Wheels Prologue.
Travis Robinson managed a lap time of 04:43.254 on the eight-kilometre prologue course, edging out brother Beau by four seconds and ensuring clear air when the opening section from Alice Springs to the remote community of Aputula (or Finke) commences on Sunday morning.
Travis makes the switch to a 4WD Extreme Trophy Truck for this year’s Finke event, after several years aboard his Pro Buggy entry. It goes without saying the new machine has made a strong first impression.
“It’s a completely different jigger to what we’re used to running, so braking distances on the Prologue course and a few other things were off. But we’re happy to get the Prologue win,” Travis said.
“We’ve only had this new truck for a week and a half, we had to grab it off the plane and there has been a lot of mucking around and a lot of late nights for the boys but we got it there.”
Defending Finke champion Beau Robinson completed prologue in a time of 04:47.533, holding off Kiwi sensation Boston Morgan-Horan, who was one second behind.
The Robinson family has set the target of having both their Trophy Trucks on the podium at the completion of the 49thannual Finke event.
“We’ve been trying to win this race for a long time. I’ve been close a lot of times, and I actually had six or seven years off from the event and only came back a couple of years ago,” Travis explained.
“The aim for this weekend is to have both trucks on the podium at the end of it.”
Trophy Trucks and Pro Buggy entries unsurprisingly dominated the top of the order in prologue, with Nick Commins (Extreme 2WD), Josh Howells (Pro Buggy), Brett Comiskey (Extreme 2WD), John Towers (Pro Buggy), Kye Camilleri (Pro Buggy), Nic Hicks (Pro Buggy) and Kent Battle (Pro Buggy) rounding out the top 10.
One of the bigger surprises of prologue emerged in the SXS class, with South Australian Lachlan Bailey finishing top of the class with a time of 05:08.778 – a time good enough for 13th overall.
Bailey’s time means he will start the Finke Desert Race ahead of the likes of Brent Smoothy, Ryan Taylor and Jared Percival – big hitters in Trophy Truck and Pro Buggy categories. He was also seven seconds ahead of nearest SXS competitor, Zac Marsh.
With Finke serving as round two of the five-stop BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Offroad Championship, Bailey is eager to play the long game on Sunday’s Race Day one.
“It’s going to be super dusty but being up the pecking order there we’re going to have some pretty fast guys around us. We will see how we go,” Bailey said.
“The strategy is to get to Finke in one piece. With the new car I don’t know what it’s going to do over the big whoops, so my plan is to learn the car and see what I can do.”
The current points leader of the 2025 BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Offroad Championship, Dale Martin, is not present at Finke this weekend, which presents a golden opportunity for second place in the championship, Danny Brown. He starts the race to Finke from 19th.
The Method Race Wheels prologue wasn’t without issue for the Pro Buggy entry of Andy Brown (Danny’s father) and Daniel Hardman, who endured a rollover about midway through the course. It is not yet known whether they will contest Sunday’s opening run.
Elsewhere, the American pairing of Brad Lovell and son Adam Lovell shone in the Ford Ranger Raptor, easily securing the top time for the Production 4WD category with a 06:04.530 run – good enough for 70 overall in a field of 100 cars.
All the on-track action at the Finke Desert Race resumes on Sunday morning, when the first cars set off for their opening 226km section from 7.30am local time.
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