Desert Racing Down Under

THE FINKE DESERT RACE 2023

Known as Australia’s greatest desert race, The Tatts Finke Desert Race is an off-road, multi-terrain two-day race for bikes, cars & buggies through desert country from Alice Springs to the small Aputula (Finke) community. The race is held each year on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June. “Finke” as it is commonly known, is one of the most significant annual sporting events in the Northern Territory and has the reputation of being one of the most difficult offroad courses in one of the most remote places in the world.

DESERT DADS

Matthew McFerran assembled his crew of “Desert Dads” to take on this grueling two-day race. The crew consisted of Mitch Yeats, Jai Williams, and Matt…the team captain. With the help of MX Store, Ballard’s Off Road, and many other awesome desert racing fanatics, they were ready to have some fun on two wheels.

TIME MACHINES

As the cherry on top, the crew kept it classic and old school by racing vintage XR600s. This would keep it interesting as race day quickly approached, and they had to scramble to find parts and get these bikes running in top shape. After a collective effort, all three crew members had an XR600 ready to take on the extreme Finke landscape.

RACE WEEKEND

Matt- "Our Finke 2023! Still have no idea how we managed to pull this one off.

Somehow I was fortunate enough to create the coolest vintage desert race team with a heap of my best mates. Can't thank Mitch & Jai enough for letting us talk you into this dumb idea. You boys absolutely killed it. Mitch finished in the top 150 at his first-ever Finke with the oldest bike in the field. Jai beat his last year time by over 20 minutes on a bike he'd ridden 3 times, and a huge thanks also to Paul Rowsthorn for driving us and all our shit all over Alice Springs. You boys did us proud.

Also, big thanks to my good pal Guy Streeter from MX Store, who believed in this idea and got us three swappers, all the parts and equipment we needed to look this good while having to film us dumbasses all week.

I even DNF'd with a puncher, hit a kangaroo, and almost burnt down the toy hauler, and I still couldn't be more stoked with how good the last week was."