Last year’s Tatts Finke Desert Race winner Travis Robinson has started where he left off, winning the Method Race Wheels Prologue for the cars at the 50th edition of the event.
As massive crowds gathered for the 50th edition of the event, today’s 8km test was to decide tomorrow’s starting order for the first leg of the race from Alice Springs to Finke, with various categories taking to the off-road circuit in hope of securing a dust free run at the front of the pack.
Travis Robinson and navigator Paul Currie set a time of 4-minutes 30 seconds, using every inch of the circuit to extract the maximum in their 4WD Trophy Truck.
They also take home the $2000 outright prologue winners prize thanks to Method Race Wheels.
It was a late effort that put them in first position and will ultimately see them start first tomorrow enroute to the Aputula Finke community on a track over 200km long each way.
Travis reflected on his lap by saying it was a good, fast and clean run.
“We’ve been on the Prologue top step a few times, it’s actually getting down and back that we haven’t accomplished that much here at Finke, so it would mean the world to win another one.
“We run a team set-up and we just need one car to win for three in a row which will be a massive achievement for our family.”
Similar to 2025, the Method Race Wheels Prologue produced a successful outing for the Robinson family with brother and 2024 Tatts Finke Desert Race winner Beau Robinson placing second.
Finishing only 6.9 seconds behind Travis’ time, Beau also had millimetre precision on the circuit with his navigator Shane Hutt.
The Western Australian brothers once again are the favourites for this year’s Tatts Finke Desert Race but an exciting battle is set to take place between them.
New Zealander Boston Morgan-Horan made it a like for like repeat of last year’s results, finishing third in the Prologue with an impressive effort in his twin turbo V6 powered 2WD Trophy Truck.
In the Side-by-Side class, the lightweight vehicles slid around the track in a tight battle for top honours in the Method Wheels Prologue.
Lachy Bailey initially set a benchmark time early in the running, before Toby Price, Australian off-road and enduro motorcycle racing world champion who was a late call-in to compete in the 50th Finke earlier this week, beat him with a sub-five-minute time.
His rapid pace set the fastest ever prologue time for the Side-by-Side category and placed him in the top 10 overall, an impressive feat in a category less powerful than the top-tier trophy trucks.
Toby Price, nine time winner of the Finke Desert race said his side-by-side experience was very different from his past Trophy Truck drives.
“It’s pretty wild, I wasn’t sure what to expect with the [Side-by-Side] but we got through in a good time and we enjoyed every minute of it.
“We’re looking forward to seeing what the track is like. We were 10th overall so now I’m a little bit worried of the four tonne vehicles coming at me.”
METHOD RACE WHEELS PROLOGUE CLASS RESULTS
PROCLASS: #33 SHANNON RENTSCH / DARREN MOLLENOYUX
PROLITE: #120 BRENT MARTIN/ ANDRE DE SIMONE
SUPER 1650: #234 CLAY AGNEW / JAMIE LIGHTFOOT
EXTREME 2WD: #489 BOSTON MORGAN HORAN / WILL HADDOCK
PERFORMANCE 2WD: #MICHAEL SHIPTON / PAUL CHORLTON
SXS PRO: #6104 TOBY PRICE / NEILL WOOLLEY
SXS SPORT: #6634 JOHN WHITE / JACK BRIGGS
PRODUCTION 4WD: #715 CRAIG LOWNDES / DALE MOSCATT
EXTREME 4WD: #1 TRAVIS ROBINSON / PAUL CURRIE
SPORTSLITE: #1065 STEVEN GRAHAM / ELLA GRAHAM
Full results from the Method Race Wheels Car Prologue can be viewed here.
The 50th Tatts Finke Desert Race will run from Friday 5 June to Monday 8 June 2026 from Alice Springs to Apatula (Finke) and back. For more information and tickets visit finkedesertrace.com.au
Dirtcomp are the official photographers of the 2018 – 2026 Tatts Finke Desert Races.
