Finke Desert Race-Central Australia

[Toolboy]

For those M50 Off road riders, 460km Desert race on a Suzuki RM125

Another Finke completed and I am feeling a little sore an worse for wear but pretty rapt the way the RM 125 hung on for the whole 460km and I completed the race without crashing once.

Prolouge on Saturday and I qualified 198th out of 360 riders, I had a good run but blew two corners when I rode into the dust of a previous rider, so middle of the pack start on Sunday.

It was a howling head wind as I set off at 12.01pm, 6 bikes and 1 quad on the grid with me. First plan was to get in front of the quad before we hit the bulldust on the prolouge track, the quad beat me off the line and went for the inside line but I railed the outside berm and blew by the quad and 5 of the bikes, all of which were 450's. I tried to kick up as much dirt as possible and pulled away from the pack we left Alice, the first 30km was crazy with bikes and dust everywhere, I picked up a lot of places and kept a steady pace all the way to Deep Well check point 60km south. At the road section only 2 bikes flew by me as I pulled into the first fuel stop at the 80km mark. Back on the road and the 125 was screaming as we pushed into the head wind for the next 20km of fast (dirt) road section. Not far out of Rodinga in the first of the whoops and bulldust I went past the KTM, the 2 other bikes that had passed me on the road and picked of few more bikes and quads. I had a really good run through the whoops, with only getting crossed up once when a I was trying to pass a quad and thought I was going to fly off the bike but saved it and powered on (wheeeeeeew). Before and after the second fuel stop 150km south there were riders and bikes on the side of the track, some crashed some mechanical and some just knackered from 60km of whoops...lol My only drama came about 40km out from Finke when I got a flat rear tyre, I kept pushing as hard as I could and then saw a bike on the side of the track with the rear tyre wrapped around the swingarm so I backed of the pace and tried to ride easily into Finke, I made it ok, it cost me some time but I arrived in 110th place and 4th in the "Up too 200cc class". My GPS read 112km/h max speed and average speed 68km/h.

At Finke it was freezing cold with the overnight temp reaching -2c....we had a huge campfire and after a few beers, a yummy feed of pasta, I hopped into my swag and slept well. We were woken at 5.30am with the buggies warming up for there 7.30am departure time. The buggies leave at 7.30 the bikes at 11.30. A fresh air cleaner, change of gearbox oil, new rear tyre and tube thanks to the Honda Team and I was ready to head back to Alice.

Monday morning I started on the 9th grid with another 9 bikes, no quads,,yahhhh, and by the time we had crossed the Finke river (dry creek bed) I had got passed 7 of the other bikes. The wind was howling again but it was a tailwind so no relieve from the dust. I chased dust the whole trip back with the bigger bikes not liking a 125 coming along side to pass so they would try to speed up, fill me with dust and I would only catch them again 100 or 200m further down the track. I passed a class competitor on a KTM 200 in the whoops but once on the road section he went back past me. I pushed all the way into town with no hassle, no near misses, just eating dust. I arrived at Alice in 87th place and 3rd in my class. 129km/h max speed and 72km/h average.

Lots of fun

Toolboy

[djump]

Well done toolboy Sounds like a great way to spend the weekend. NIce shots too, keep it up!