Toby Price Racing press release:

Toby Price has reaffirmed his status as Kings of the Desert by winning the 2015 Tatts Finke Desert race.

This year’s 480-kilometre, two-day journey from Alice Springs south to Finke saw approximately 600 motorcycle and 134 car competitors make the journey, as approximately 15,000 spectators camped along the length of the 240 km course.

Price – who finished third on debut in the Dakar Rally in January and currently leads the Australian Off-Road Championships – continued to underline his burgeoning legend status by making his first successful title defence on his trusty KTM 500 EXC, while carrying a foot injury he sustained during pre-running.

Price qualified fastest, took a 4-minute 45 second lead into the overnight camp at Finke and won the fourth Finke Desert Race crown of his career by 6-minutes and 35 seconds. Incredibly, it was the second time Price has won Australia’s fastest Desert race since breaking his neck in April of 2013.

Toby Price – “It definitely wasn’t an easy one on this trip, that’s for sure, but to get that monkey off my back and win back to back is an amazing feeling, and to get win number four is better again. It was a hard slog and I can’t thank the crew here enough, it’s been an awesome effort by everybody. My theory was that if I could get a good run down and pull some gaps, hopefully my way home would be a little bit easier for me, so yesterday I just bit my lip and hung on and went for it. I don’t know whether my foot is cracked or whether there is some ligament damage, but I just know it’s very painful, it’s hard to stand on it, and I had some very messy moments down through the track. I didn’t get on the track at all during the week, I tried to ride a little bit on Thursday but was in a ton of pain so I knew it was gonna’ be tough, but when that green light comes on, the adrenaline kicks in and we want to win Finke. A lot of guys have put too much time and effort in for me just to pull out, and now at the end of the day I’m sitting on top and I’m pretty damn stoked that I kept pushing and went through all that.”