After a lot of preparation Ed Hartley loses his Finke virginity and tells us what it was like for his “first time”. This is his How To Ride Your First Finke PT4.
A lot gets written about Finke, every year but when you’ve never been, no amount of YouTube clips or magazine articles will quell the nerves or feeling of being unprepared. Just to recap quickly, I committed to Finke early in 2022 partly to be in ADB and partly because if I put it in writing, I couldn’t pussy out. This is How To Ride Your First Finke PT4.
I bought a 2021 GasGas EC250 and did a couple of SAORC rounds to qualify. I scraped through that, then after the first 2023 ride in deep sand at Robe (SA) I started thinking about a four-stroke 500. A little egging on from my mates and next thing I knew I was collecting a brand new Husqvarna FE501 and selling the Gasser. I’ve always bought second hand bikes until now. Pumped with the purchase, I dropped it at Banks Race Development for a full Finke setup and the bike delivered in spades.
From February until June Finke was on my mind. It’s fair to say I over-thought things which to be honest is kind of fun because I love dirt bikes. If you’re a rookie looking to shortcut the bullshit and just get there and back, you only need to read the next paragraph. Or if you like to prepare, do the 1%ers and nerd out on riding, read it all.
Firstly you can get away with completing one MA round for your Finke CV to qualify then training by trail riding as much as possible. If you do regular training rides (ideally with whoops involved) and push some out past three hours you can finish. This process alone means you naturally sort your skill, endurance, body, bike, hydration and gear to a level that’s good enough.
Then the best bet is to book a full rider package with Outback Motorcycle Adventures or Grabbo’s VIP Finke race experience. All you need to do is fly in with your gear. Of course you can prep and take your own bike and go on a big road trip to Alice, it just takes a lot more resources and time than you expect. I got to meet Toby Price at scrutineering and his advice was simply “keep it on two wheels”. Do that and you’ve got a recipe to love the Finke Desert Race.
I’ve tried to summarise what stood out to me, doing it the first time.
PICK YOUR LINES
Line selection is the most critical element I feel to completing the race safely. The grass is always greener, and the whoops are always smaller on the other side. As it happens the sides of the track are nearly always the best line for a rider.
The cars power through, taking the racing line and in doing so form deep ruts and churn up the track, exacerbating mid corner bumps and exposing rocks and spit sand across the outer edges. So the outside line might look longer, thick and sandy from the dirt thrown out by buggies but it’s the safest line 95% of the time.
The trees provide nice scenery and break up the track but how come the whoops are always deepest in the shadows under the trees? Back markers start after 1pm and on the long ride home, late in the afternoon as you come into Finke or Alice the shadows across the track mask dangers. Right at the end you enter part of the prologue track which is in complete shadow through the banking corners and inside it are plenty of whoops and bumps to cross you up in front of a crowd right at the end of 450km of riding. Don’t crash.
CONSERVE YOUR ENERGY
Motorcycling organisers love a long sign on and shitloads of waiting around. I hate this, sign on should be 30 minutes before go time, followed by rider briefing then bang, racing starts. Instead we waited three or four hours in the sun with little shade before each day’s racing, often in full kit sweating out energy. By race time you’re no longer nervous, just relieved to get on with it.
Drink water with hydralites, eat, rest and try to stay cool. You need the energy for riding. The last 40kms of each day are hard. Some parts of your body will be cooked and for me, it was my hands above all else.
THE REPUTATION HAS MORE BARK THAN BITE (MOSTLY).
The pressure in the lead up to prologue and race day was intense, and all internal. Finke has a widow-maker reputation and I’d never even been to watch it, so I had little idea what to expect. I just kept hearing stories from riders about broken backs.
When you roll in for scrutineering, prologue and so on the car park is jammed with thousands of Landcruisers, Rangers & Rams. It feels like you’re stepping into the bull ring with half of Alice Springs watching. First time nerves are very real. If I’m lucky enough to ride next year, I will be far more relaxed.
At the end of the day, its dirt bike riding and we all know how to do that. In the words of Stephen Gall it’s about “managing the 4 inches between your ears”. The lead up isn’t fun but the riding is, and once you’re on that track the riding intensity is determined by you.
PROLOGUE
You can’t win Finke, or even affect your race time during prologue (apart from maybe having less dust) but you can wind up in hospital. The prologue track has some nasty sections, and if you don’t know the track, care needs to be taken. Some guys literally got taken out on the line by the rider next to them so make space. During Prologue three riders were lying in the dirt waiting for ambulances by the time I lapped it. A slow prologue doesn’t matter.
HOW WILLING ARE YOU TO HOLD IT ON?
My goal was to finish and I didn’t take too many risks, particularly in rocky sections. The whole track is rough. The faster open sections hide some rocks and square edges. The racers were long gone, and punter riders who knew the track were going quicker than me here.
I had trained in whoops and felt pretty confident in them. On Day 2 coming out of Finke when the whoops set in, I overtook three grids worth of riders to get clean air, but a few passed me back afterwards on the straights and I didn’t really care. Riders who crashed out on the side of the track, were often by the rocks and I felt for them. You knew they had big injuries.
It’s especially dangerous in the last few kilometres into Finke so my best advice is back off on arrival and departure and stick to the edges (there were nasty rocks in the middle). There’s another 220km to make up time. There are some marked rises/jumps all over the track, and you either have to be careful or Ivan Long who just holds it pinned. The guy is mad.
On Day 1 despite being conservative I had a few moments. In rough chopped out whoops I nearly cartwheeled just after overtaking a bloke. I was so embarrassed I hung on past the point of sanity and somehow the bike ended on two wheels. There were also some solid hits to the front wheel, probably nothing like the fast guys though.
When I rolled into Finke my mates were surprised by how energised I looked as they’d seen so many spent riders cross the line. My hands were cooked and I couldn’t have held on much longer but the rest of me was fine.
Day 2 is harder as you start with less energy and the track is rougher. It had 500 cars x 2, and 400 bikes x 2. Out of Finke past the dangerously rocky river bed it went into some wild sandy ruts which had the bike moving laterally and riders sweating but then I found a normal rhythm as the whoops set in. By the end I was thirstier and naturally more tired than the first day.
Although I felt like I rode differently from Day 1 to 2, pushing myself harder on Day 2, my time was one minute slower on the return leg. Lots of riders had really consistent times. The consistency award goes to Korey MacMahon whose times were 0.1 seconds apart each day.
WANT TO RIDE FASTER & SAFER?
I’d say the biggest gains come from track knowledge. Some local blokes had ridden there and back every weekend for two months in the lead up. There’s no better training. Ivan Long in his 10th Finke said he’s done 65,000 km along the Finke track.
A regular interstate punter can’t compete with that. We had done about 120km of pre-running once or twice. Personally I think I could take nearly an hour off my total time with solid pre-running next year but this is unrealistic with work & young kids. After that more on-bike training to increase speed in whoops and late race fitness combined with a few tweaks like foam rally grips, ECU upgrade and taller gearing to the mighty 501 would help me to hold more speed.
WEIRD STUFF HAPPENS
There’s good weird like the crowds along the track. They give you so much energy and often a few laughs, from people sitting in a boat on top of their 4×4 to a pile of Father Christmases track side. One Father Christmas fell into a bush as I passed and I nearly lost it.
Bad weird is the odd things that can happen to your body on that track. My right foot went numb from the vibration and isn’t quite normal yet. Daniel Banks temporarily lost vision 60km out of Finke last year and had to ride squinting but that’s Finke for you.
Honestly it was one of the best weekends riding ever. So if it’s a goal of yours, commit now and go for it!
WORDS AND || ED HARTLEY
PHOTOS || CHARLIE LOWSON PHOTOGRAPHY