David Walsh, Finke champion, 34: Q&A

When Alice Springs local David Walsh saddles up again for the Tatts Finke Desert Race he will be chasing history. Find out what makes this four-time champion of Australia’s most insane race tick.

Winning streak: David Walsh. Photo: Jess Howard

You’re the reigning champion of Australia’s wildest off-road race, the Tatts Finke Desert Race - in which cars, buggies and motorbikes sprint along a track beside the old Ghan railway line from Alice Springs to Aputula, a distance of 226km, before returning the same way the next day. Racing it on a bike has been likened to “hanging on to a cliff edge” for several hours. How so?

In order to win, you have to ride on the very limit - averaging 125km/h, and hitting speeds of 175km/h - on a desert track with deep sand, rocky sections and big rolling corrugations called “whoops”. You’re standing on your footpegs 90 per cent of the time, so it’s very hard on the legs and lower back. And you can’t let your concentration slip for even a split second, because that’s when something could go horribly wrong. It’s a mental strain, focusing that hard for that long.

You live in Alice with your wife Kate and four kids aged from two to 15, and co-own a building firm in town. Being a local is an advantage with training, right?

Yes, because for several months before each race I can do what’s called “pre-running” – racing the track, or sections of it, in order to build up bike fitness and mentally map every section, so I know what’s over the top of every dune rise, and beyond every whoop and corner. Knowing where I can hold the throttle on, and where I need to ease off, is vital.

Some of the whoops are 1.4m tall, and appear one after the other like waves on the track. What’s the technique for tackling them?

You don’t want to drop down into the trough - you’ll lose rhythm and speed – so you keep your weight back on the bike and try to skim the whoops, just tapping your front wheel on the crest of each one. When you get it right, it feels like you’re floating over them at 160km/h.

How about the dreaded lumps of compacted dirt known as “square edges”?

You try to avoid them – I’m looking about 50m ahead while racing, scanning the track – but you can’t miss them all. They’re as hard as concrete and a massive jolt goes through your body if you hit them – it feels like your arse is going through your brain [laughs].

At this year’s event you’ll be trying to match the five consecutive Finke wins of your childhood hero, Randall Gregory, who was left a paraplegic after a training accident in 1996. And your great mate Daymon Stokie, also a Finke champion, died in an off-road race in 2018. How do you reconcile your love of racing with your life as a family man?

It’s definitely difficult, and it’s been getting a lot more difficult the older I get. I feel sorry for my parents, who are nervous wrecks going into the Finke weekend, and for my wife and family – the stress that this puts on all of them. I started racng Finke in 2007 - but I didn’t get my first win until 2019. I know my time racing has to come to an end one day, but it’s hard when you’re at the top and you know what it takes to win. It’s something I’m finding hard to let go of.

The annual race, which started in 1976, is a big deal in Alice Springs. People talk about “Finke Fever” – what does that mean to you?

Finke weekend always felt like Christmas for me, growing up in Alice; the whole town gets around the event and there’s a great vibe. My parents would take me and my siblings camping beside the track, among the red sand dunes and desert oaks, and it was the thing we looked forward to most all year. This is my 16th year riding Finke, and actually I’m looking forward to the day when I’m not racing, and I get to take my kids camping so they can experience that side of it for themselves.

Have you ever thought about making the switch into a car at Finke?

I was lucky enough to navigate last year for Brent Smoothy, but we didn’t finish. I’m navigating again for him this year. I would love to drive that car but my ambition and my wallet are two different things [laughs]. It’s a million dollar car - and that’s just to buy it, not even to run it.

The 2024 Tatts Finke Desert Race is on June 7-10,https://finkedesertrace.com.au/