Reigning Kings of the Desert Travis Robinson and Paul Currie have put on a driving clinic to take a resounding outright lead at Day One of the 2026 Tatts Finke Desert Race.
The defending winners were dominant from start to finish during the 223km journey from Alice Springs to Aputula, in the 50th running of the iconic off-road race.
Robinson and Currie finished with a blistering time of 1:35.25 hours, good enough for a nine minute gap over their next-best rival, Kiwi Boston Morgan-Horan and navigator Will Haddock.
Meantime in third outright was the Extreme 2WD Trophy Truck combination of Greg Gartner and Mark Hannaford.
The day one success was bittersweet for Travis, whose brother Beau Robinson and navigator Shane Hutt limped home in 32nd outright following car issues. The pair had hoped for another dream 1-2 Finke success, having achieved the result last year.
“We wanted to play the strategic game a bit, but I wanted to get down here quicker. I got a bit flustered and wasn’t focussing on the task at hand as much. But we still got home first, which is killer,” said Robinson.
“The truck is great, the boys at Mason do an awesome job… The car is awesome, it’s on rails.”
Navigator Currie added: “Tomorrow we’ll go in with a little bit of a lead so we’ll need to protect that to get home. It’s a long way home and in tough conditions, especially once all these bikes come through.”
Boston Morgan-Horan showed resilience during his run from Alice Springs to Finke, after his car suffered a puncture with about 30km left. He and navigator Will Haddock attempted to change their wheel and tyre, however a jammed jack meant they had to abort plans and limp to the finish with a flat.
Unsurprisingly, the tyre had stripped down to the rim by the time they reached the finish line, making their second-place finish even more remarkable.
“The run was amazing, we got past Beau at some point. Other than that we were going at a good pace and we were safe, nothing too silly. Until that flat tyre I felt good,” Morgan-Horan said.
“I was out of the car for two minutes, I think Will was out for four minutes [trying to get the jack out], so we spent a lot of time out of the car.”
For former Finke winner Greg Gartner, the third-place outright result marks a return to the pointy end of the field aboard his new Trophy truck.
“That was about as rough as I’ve driven the Finke race,” Gartner said. “Years ago you might get a flat section to have a break, but there was no break here – it has really rutted up after those big rains. I’m really happy to be here to be honest,” he said.
Meantime in the highly competitive SXS class at Finke it was journeymen Glenn Ackroyd and Michael Price who emerged triumphant with a time of 02:03:26. Jeff McNiven and Jake Nicholson were 29 minutes adrift in second, while Kane Jones and Jeremy Kempston were third.
Last minute Finke inclusion Toby Price suffered a mechanical failure en route to Aputula, while reigning Comiskey Mining Services Motorsport Australia Off Road champions Lachlan Bailey and Jordan Zollo did not finish.
“It was rough as usual, but it went well,” said Ackroyd. “It was very dusty out there, the first 60km was basically a white-out really. It then cleared up after a little while.”
Navigator Michael Price added: “Glen handled the conditions perfect, we just clicked off each section and pushed where we could push. We also took it easy where we had to, just to look after the car and makes sure we got it down here in one piece.”
Elsewhere on day one, it was Michael Shipton and Paul Chorlton who finished home as first Extreme 2WD, Michael Zacka and Dylan Blake were the first of the Pro Buggy entries, Ben Falk and Johnny O’Connor were the fastest Pro Lite, while Craig Lowndes and Dale Moscatt currently lead the Production 4WD class.
Sunday’s result is just part one of the Finke Desert Race story. All the action resumes from 7:15am Central Australian Time, where competitors will complete the 223km journey back to Alice Springs.
The 50th anniversary of the Finke Desert Race has already been hailed a huge success, with massive entry numbers, big crowds of over 15,000 people, and no shortage of on-track action.
