Hundreds of drivers, riders gear up for 2024 Finke Desert Race in Central Australia
Red dust will rise from the track of the Finke Desert Race once again this weekend as thousands of revheads descend on Central Australia for what is widely considered the country's toughest off-road motorsport event.
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00:00 Anthony Offa, welcome to Stateline.
00:03 As president of the great Fink Desert Race, it's near Alice Springs.
00:07 You've had a lifelong love of motorsports.
00:10 What draws you to it?
00:11 I was raped into the Fink Desert Race 30 odd years ago by my brother-in-law, who, we both
00:19 had motorbikes, and he said, "Would you like to race Fink?"
00:22 Now, he's 20 years younger than me, and I said, "Why not give it a crack?"
00:26 You've been running Fink since 2002 as president.
00:29 What keeps you doing it year after year?
00:32 Our event was really struggling back in the early 2000s.
00:36 We were almost insolvent.
00:38 We had mostly competitors from Alice Springs, very few interstates, virtually no money in
00:46 the bank, and not a high profile.
00:49 In order to save the event and grow it, we started to get the message out that the territory
00:56 is open, the Fink Desert Race is open for interstate riders in particular.
00:59 We're targeting riders.
01:02 We turned the Titanic.
01:04 We've now gone from 25% interstaters and 75% locals to now 90% interstaters.
01:11 Let's talk about numbers at Fink.
01:12 They were down last year.
01:14 How are they looking in 2024?
01:16 We've had a decline from 2022 by 20%, and now another 30% this year.
01:23 I put that purely down to what's happening with the economy.
01:27 There's people that are in their mid-20s to late-30s that are the ones that the numbers
01:32 have dropped off from.
01:33 I think third-only interest rate rises is the reason behind that.
01:37 So the impact will be significant on the local economy.
01:41 But I mean, we'll get through this, and we'll get to the 50th.
01:44 The challenge for us is what happens in the 51st year.
01:47 What kind of impact is crime, and indeed the media's reporting of crime, having on attendance
01:52 numbers to the race?
01:53 We had a considerable number of riders saying, "We're not going to bring the family this
01:57 year.
01:58 We're just going to come ourselves.
02:00 We think it's unsafe."
02:02 But I don't think that's the major impact on where we are this year.
02:06 I'm sure the town has its problems, but we're not going to let the crime issue stand in
02:11 the way of a highly successful event.
02:14 There are obvious concerns about safety raised when there was a death of a spectator at the
02:18 event in 2021.
02:20 What changes have taken place, and how do you think crowds and attendance, the think,
02:25 has been impacted by that?
02:26 The spectator attendance hasn't been impacted.
02:29 We estimate 10,000 to 12,000 spectators that camp along the 223-kilometre track.
02:34 The feedback that we're hearing from car drivers is that with the changes to the spectating
02:41 rules, a minimum 30-metre distance, and over some of the dunes and rises it's out to 50
02:48 metres, is that they feel more confident.
02:51 Some spectators don't like it.
02:52 They're used to standing a lot closer, or some of their key vantage points are now roped
02:57 off, but that's the price you pay to keep the race going.
03:00 In retrospect, was it too dangerous?
03:02 Was think too dangerous a race at that point?
03:05 All motorsport is dangerous, and people need to accept that there's an element of risk,
03:10 and we can't eliminate all that risk, but we've put enhanced procedures in place to
03:16 mitigate that.
03:17 The 50th anniversary of the Think Desert Race is coming up in 2026.
03:22 How hard is that to believe, considering where it all began?
03:25 I mean, the genesis of this was three people sitting around a table in 1975 to come up
03:30 with the idea of the there and back enduro.
03:34 As that first event drew nearer, I think the committee at the time thought this could grow.
03:40 So from 56 competitors back then, we've gone to over 1,000 competitors in years gone by.
03:46 Anthony Offa, thank you so much for joining Stateline.
03:48 Good on you, Myles.
03:49 It's been a pleasure.
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