West Australian brothers Travis and Beau Robinson have continued their dominance at the 2025 Tatts Finke Desert Race, completing the opening section in first and second place respectively.
In a gruelling day where more than 25 percent of the field did not complete the 226 kilometre journey from Alice Springs to the remote community of Aputula (Finke), Travis Robinson and navigator Paul Currie were fastest with a time of 01:38:26 – believed to be the second-fastest time on record.
Defending Finke winners Beau Robinson and Shane Hutt finished three minutes behind with a time of 01:41:30. Completing the top three was Billy Geddes with a time of 01:45:25, as he attempts to improve on second-place overall in 2024.
Meanwhile, Kiwi sensation Boston Morgan-Horan managed fourth overall, nine minutes adrift of Travis’ time – despite multiple mechanical gremlins and a stoppage on the track to Finke.
According to Travis, the opening day of racing provided a strong foundation aboard his new Extreme 4WD truck, having only taken delivery approximately 10 days ago.
“We got the hang of the car about 100 kilometres in – we didn’t want to beat up on it too much so we were a bit conservative,” said Travis.
“We will just continue to run our race and see where we’re at.”
A visibly frustrated Boston Morgan-Horan was left to rue what might have been after making ground on both Robinson brothers before his mechanical setbacks.
“I was all going pretty good but we had some issues with the truck and we lost a spare tyre on the way,” Morgan-Horan explained.
“The truck issues made me angry for sure.”
John Towers finished the best of the buggy entries in his Prolite machine with an impressive 01:49:36 run.
Michael Zacka, Josh Howells, Michael Dolan, Brent Smoothy and Jared Percival rounded out the top 10. Danny Brown came home in 11th on Sunday, while father Andy Brown nursed home his Pro Buggy entry to 12th after suffering a rollover in Saturday’s Prologue.
In the competitive SXS Championship, it was Jeff McNiven who finished top of the SXS Pro class, arriving in Aputula with a time of 02:02:27.
There was a particularly high rate of attrition in the SXS class, with SXS Prologue winner Lachlan Bailey, Glenn Brinkman, Zac Marsh and many other falling victim to the gruelling Finke track.
According to SXS Championship leader Glenn Ackroyd, who finished third in SXS, the track was full of hard-edged bumps.
“We got a flat tyre about halfway through today, there are some big whoops out there – it was actually the sand that caught us out most,” Ackroyd said.
Competitors will stay overnight in Aputula on Sunday before track action recommences from 7.15am local time on Monday morning.
A corrected time starting order for the return leg means that whoever crosses the start-finish line first at Alice Springs will be crowned the 49th King of the Desert.
