Toby Price has won the cars portion of the Tatts Finke Desert Race for the third year in a row, once again receiving the coveted King of the Desert trophy.
Price, along with navigator Jason Duncan, rocketed through the course in their V8-powered trophy truck for an overall time of 3:21:46.6 seconds.
That was just 0.4 seconds shy of his record-setting time last year and a whole six minutes ahead of second-place finisher Greg Gartner.
Price now has nine King of the Desert crowns, with six wins in the bike category and three in the car category.
“To get my first win was a dream come true, and then to say I have nine [now] is wild,” said Price.
“We had a really good run, the truck did an amazing job, my crew did an amazing job – without them, I wouldn’t be up here.”
While further down the overall leaderboard at 73rd place, the Ford Ranger Raptor driven by Brad and Byam Lovell – who piloted the same vehicle in the Baja 1000 last November – came first in the Production 4WD vehicle category.
The Raptor also broke a one-way record for this class, finishing the first leg of the race in 2:51:18.711 and achieving a strong but not quite record-setting total time of 5:56:30.
Ford Performance had entered the event in partnership with Walkinshaw Performance, with father and son duo Brad and Byam Lovell on board.
“Coming into this, I thought it was a fast rally race with some little whoops,” said driver Brad Lovell.
“Seeing it torn up now, this is like San Felipe, Baja whoops. Great time, a lot of variation there, and at the end, we just started running, and we definitely got on top of some whoops that we have not before in the Ranger Raptor.
“But it took it – super-tough truck! We were charging hard at the end there.”
The Lovell duo had to stop on the first race day a few times to tighten a bolt in the Raptor’s rear suspension, though the second race day went more smoothly – particularly with dust posing less of a visibility issue.
The race itself took place over June 11-12. The course consists of two sections, each approximately 226km in length.
127 vehicles entered the four-wheeled vehicle category but only 79 completed both days.
MORE: Ranger Raptor racer taking on Finke after Baja 1000 win
