West Australian Travis Robinson and navigator Paul Currie have been crowned the 2025 Kings of the Desert, following a breakthrough victory at the Tatts Finke Desert Race.

After years of campaigning in Australia’s biggest off road event – at one point walking away from the Finke race because of the heartache that came with losing the race while leading – Robinson prevailed in gruelling conditions on Monday morning, finishing with a total race time of 03:24.35.

In a memorable day for the Robinson family, Travis’ brother Beau Robinson and navigator Shane Hutt ran home second outright in 03:29.14 to complete an emotion-charged 1-2.

Click here to view all final race results.

“I was hearing all sorts of noises coming out of the car for the last 100 kays, and I took it very cautiously in the last corners,” Travis said. “It’s just amazing.”

“There’s no other person I’d rather hand the King of the Desert crown to,” added Beau Robinson. “It’s a big accomplishment to finish 1 and 2, no-one has done it before and I dare say no-one will do it again. It’s a big accomplishment just to get one car to the finish, but to do it with two cars and to dominate all weekend is a dream.”

Travis made the most of a three-minute overnight lead to effectively control the race on the 225km journey home from Aputula (or Finke) to Alice Springs on Monday morning. Thanks to a corrected times starting order, and with brother Beau effectively in tow, the Robinson brothers knew they had the 1-2 in the bag as long as there was only clear air ahead of them.

Rounding out the podium for outright honours was Kiwi sensation Boston Morgan-Horan and navigator Will Haddock, completing the circa 450km there-and-back dash in 03:30.06.

Morgan-Horan was positioned in fourth overnight, behind Billy Geddes. He quickly began chipping away time on Geddes on the run home, before a huge end-to-end rollover brought Geddes’ race to an abrupt end. It was later confirmed the driver and navigator are both okay.

For Morgan-Horan, a Finke podium finish on his maiden attempt is a dream come true.

“It feels pretty good, I’m pretty amped with it,” he said.

“I want to come back and win the thing now, the track is a lot of fun.

“I wanted to catch Billy and get up behind him. I hope he’s alright. We had the same hole and landed near him, I was lucky not to have hit him.”

Following in fourth place was the first of the buggy entrants, the Pro Buggy driven by Michael Zacka, with John Towers (Prolite), Jared Percival (Pro Buggy), Andy Brown (Pro Buggy), Roydn Bailey (Pro Buggy), Hayden Bentley (Extreme 4WD) and Mark Burrows (Pro Buggy) rounding out the top 10.

Finke lived up to its reputation in the 49^th running, with close to half of the 104 registered entries failing to make it the full race distance. It meant there were quite a few upsets between categories.

New South Welshman Kane Jones pulled off a huge surprise in the SXS category, taking the top position alongside navigator Jeremy Kempston, aboard a Polaris Pro R.

Overnight leaders Jeff McNiven and navigator Jake Nicholson managed to hold onto second in the SXS class despite a stoppage of more than 10 minutes to address mechanical issues.

“That was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, the whoops were huge, it was rough and the last 40km beat the hell out of us to be honest,” said Jones. “I’m astounded, it has taken years to get here.

“I’m so unexperienced compared to a lot of the other SXS entries. I’ve had a sub-par car for years, and I literally built this thing in the shed myself. No-one else has touched this car, and to have guys of this calibre in the field and get up there in the end result, I’m so happy.”

Meantime, the Ford-backed Ranger Raptor outfit of Brad Lovell and son Adam Lovell managed to secure three consecutive victories in the Production 4WD class, and were good enough for 43^rd place overall.

With the conclusion of another memorable Finke weekend, the off-road community turns its attention to round three of the BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship, to be held at Loveday in South Australia July 26-27.

Click here to view all final race results.