Toby Price wins Finke Desert Race-Sets new record for overall race time

By Bruce Williams

Date posted: June 13, 2022

Toby Price, twice winner of the Dakar on bikes, has taken back-to-back wins in King of the Desert crowns in the Car category at the 2022 Tatts Finke Desert Race.

Along with claiming another win with co-driver Jason Duncan, Price set a new race record.  Price’s win takes the Red Bull racer’s total number of victories at Australia’s toughest off-road race to eight crowns (six Bike wins, two Car wins).

After together experiencing heartbreak in 2018 and 2019, the impressive Price and Duncan crossed the line in record time, with an overall time of 3 hours 21 minutes and 46.2 seconds to claim victory with a 2.89 minute margin over Aaron James (#93) in second.  Price is the first and only competitor to be crowned King of the Desert at the Finke Desert Race in both Car and Bike categories, with his 2022 campaign seeing him clean sweep the weekend, finishing first in Prologue and on Race Day 1.

“We’re stoked and it was a good run back this morning,” Price said.  “We didn’t push, we didn’t do anything crazy, I just can’t thank my crew enough for all their efforts. “We had a really good run yesterday, and the hardest part is that you don’t know what’s going on behind you. You push really hard, and the boys have done a great job with the truck… everything has turned out really good.”

Toby Price charges on his way to a new record in the Finke Desert Race 2022 – Images: Motorsport Australia/Dakar Press Team Australia.

Aaron James finished second, while Brent Martin and Ben Dawson completed the podium, adrift of James’ time by 4.31 minutes.

Race veterans and father-son duo Shannon and Ian Rentsch (#33) took the chequered flag in fourth, with Tyler and Max Owen finishing the race as fifth fastest.

Hayden Bentley and Viv Coe (#818) maintained sixth position from Race Day 1 through to the Start/Finish line in Alice Springs, while Jake and Kate Swinglehurst (#49) improved by one spot to finish seventh.

The Swinglehurst siblings pipped Brent Smoothy and Reece Burgess (#447), who moved up to eighth position after starting Race Day 2 from tenth.

2011 King of the Desert Greg Gartner (#410) dropped two positions during the journey to Alice Springs to finish ninth, while Kent Battle and Heath Lawson (#31) jumped four places to round out the Top 10, with an overall time of 3 hours and 41.53 seconds.

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Toby Price wins Finke Desert Race-Sets new record for overall race time

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