{"id":719386,"date":"2026-06-06T17:19:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T17:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/719386\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T17:19:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T17:19:34","slug":"travis-robinson-and-paul-currie-secure-finke-prologue-honours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/719386\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis Robinson and Paul Currie secure Finke Prologue honours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defending Finke Desert Race champions Travis Robinson and Paul Currie have started their defence at the 50th anniversary event perfectly, securing the fastest time in the Method Race Wheels Prologue on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In stunning red centre conditions in front of thousands of spectators, Robinson put on a clinic in his Mason Extreme 4WD entry to finish seven seconds ahead of brother Beau Robinson and navigator Shane Hutt \u2013 also in a 4WD entry \u2013 over the circa 7km Prologue course.<\/p>\n

Click here to see the full provisional results.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kiwi Boston Morgan-Horan and navigator Will Haddock finished third fastest in a cars field that numbered more than 150 entries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good, I kept the car clean and reasonably straight \u2013 there\u2019s a couple of little things with the car that I\u2019ve got to check over now but I\u2019m happy,\u201d said Travis.<\/p>\n

The Method Race Wheels Prologue result lends a huge advantage to the Robinson brothers, effectively allowing them to manage the run to Aputula on Sunday from the front of the field.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With Beau debuting a new Mason 4WD truck for Finke, the 1-2 will provide him additional wiggle room to get his head around the new entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was a different deal, we hadn\u2019t driven our car. But now we have driven it and Beau hasn\u2019t had that much time in his,\u201d Travis explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be good for us, it would be good to win another one and go back-to-back. I reckon I\u2019d be pretty content with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Meantime in the SXS class, Finke legend Toby Price and Neill Woolley blitzed the field with a time of 4:59.038mins \u2013 good enough for a 10th outright and some four seconds clear of their next class rival, Lochlan Waters and Kevin Waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m known for putting the foot into it and having some fun, so took it a bit easy on the big bumps \u2013 there was too sections of that I took my time to get through \u2013 anywhere else I was foot to the floor,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m now actually really damn nervous because I\u2019ve got some heavy hitters behind us in big vehicles and we\u2019re right in the mix of it. Hopefully I\u2019ll have to do the rounds tonight and say \u2018hey boys, when you\u2019re hitting that button I\u2019m out of the way\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trophy trucks unsurprisingly dominated the Finke field in Prologue, with Toby Whateley (Extreme 2WD), Hayden Bentley (Extreme 4WD), Greg Gartner (Extreme 2WD), Nick Commins (Extreme 2WD), and Sam Bentley (Extreme 4WD) rounding out the top eight.<\/p>\n

Brent Martin was the best of the buggy entries, finishing Prologue in ninth outright in his Prolite machine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Long-time Finke competitor and former Comiskey Mining Services Motorsport Australia Off Road champion Shannon Rentsch was the first of the Pro Buggy machines, and 12th outright.<\/p>\n

Meantime, Craig Lowndes and Dale Moscatt were fastest home in the Production 4WD aboard their Chevrolet Silverado ute, with a time of 6:14.839mins.<\/p>\n

The Prologue sets the starting order for Sunday\u2019s Section One between Alice Springs and Aputula, or Finke. Competitors will then complete their return journey to Alice Springs on Monday, where the eventual winners will be crowed the 2026 Kings of the Desert.<\/p>\n

As always you can stay up to date with the latest Finke news and action via the Motorsport Australia website, YouTube and social channels.<\/p>\n

Click here to see the full provisional results.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending Finke Desert Race champions Travis Robinson and Paul Currie have started their defence at the 50th anniversary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,346153,44],"class_list":["post-719386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-finke-desert-race","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}