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Former Dakar champion Toby Price has been crowned king of the desert, after winning a record-breaking sixth Finke Desert Race motorbikes title.
More than 100 cars and 500 motorbikes raced from Alice Springs, along a rough dirt track to the small community of Apatula — formerly known as Finke — and back again over two days.
The champion rider finished the gruelling 460-kilometre course in 03:55:25.1.
It was a precision ride for Price, who recorded a time difference of only six seconds between his two days riding the course.
He said the record-breaking title was sweeter than his previous wins.
"Fingers crossed the sixth stays there for a while, if I don't come back and do it on the bikes again, I don't want anyone beating that anytime soon," Price said.
However, the victory was bittersweet.
Price was attempting a double-win, in both the car and motorbike divisions, but was forced to forfeit the former when his trophy truck had a mechanical failure.
"It's a bummer, it would have been nice to try and go one-one with the thing," he said.
"It is what it is. Nothing really should be made to go at speeds like that across that terrain.
"It's understandable that things break and things happen."
Hospital staff in Alice Springs were kept busy, with almost forty people presenting to the hospital with injuries.
Thirty-two competitors were injured and 14 spectators suffered minor injuries.
There were no life-threatening injuries, with the majority of the patients requiring treatment for joint dislocations and fractured arms or legs.
Father-son team dominate cars competition
The win in the cars division was a six-time victory as well for father-son duo Ian and Shannon Rentsch from Warnambool, who took the crown with a time of 03:36:37.3.
"It's unreal to win six, and it's really good this time to win start to finish," Shannon Rentsch said.
They said the conditions this year were particularly tough.
"This year was really dry and really dusty, so it was important to get a good prologue, the track was really rough," Shannon said.
"Each year it seems to get rougher."
The pair managed to hold onto the leading position throughout the entire race.
"To win from prologue, down to Finke and back, was incredible," Shannon said.
'Finke fever will set in'
As for attempting the double-win again, Price said he would have to reassess before next year.
"Unfortunately that's two years in a row that we haven't made it in the truck," he said.
"It's getting harder and harder to try and stay in front of these boys. They're definitely putting a fight up and pushing hard.
"It's getting close to where I am really happy with the amount of wins on the bike."
But Price won't rule out another attempt to push his record up to seven.
"February will come around and Finke fever will set in, and we'll see what happens," he said.
As for the Rentschs, there's no question about whether they will be trekking to Central Australia for next year's race.
"We'll definitely be back next year," Ian Rentsch said.
Topics: motor-sports, sport, alice-springs-0870, nt
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