As they do every year, Australia’s toughest enduro riders and drivers trekked back to Alice Springs for the 2007 running of the notorious Finke Desert Race. Victoria’s Paul Smith is of course no stranger to the course, having competed on both 2 and 4 wheels over the past 7 years. Smith has worked hard this year and it’s definitely paying off, with 3 straight wins in the Victorian ATV MX series and now the icing on the cake – winning Finke’s quad class on his trusty LTR450, and in spectacular Smith-Style!
Prologue ran much smoother for Smith this year, sitting him second off the line behind Victorian Aaron Ovens and NT local Ed Hargrave who together qualified equal firsts. This was a much better way to start the gruelling weekend, after Smiths heartbreaking crash at last years’ prologue which saw him and his quad limp home injured.
The Alice to Finke leg of the race ran without a hitch for Smith, and it was looking good for the Yellow Riders at the end of day one, pulling into the Finke checkpoint Smith had a 13 minute lead over his Southern Quads team mate Aaron Ovens in second, and Brett Clissold yet another Victorian Suzuki pilot bringing in third.
A minor bingle with a CR500 early on the second day of racing was not enough to shake Smith’s sights on the finish. She may not have looked as tidy as she did on the start line, but the hardy LTR never faltered despite coming home missing half a tyre, part of a rim, and just one nerf bar. “Finke is brutal. And its certainly a testament to just how well-built the Suzuki is.” Smith gushed. We could say the same about the rider! With a final time of 6:09:17, Smith not only blitzed the quad field a healthy 14 min ahead of the quad pack, but placed himself a very respectable 58th overall of the 345 finishers.
The weekend was definitely a great victory, not only for Smith, but also for Suzuki bringing home 1st, 2nd and 3rd!

A very “yellow” Final Top 5 placings for Quad class;

997 Smith, Paul Suzuki LTR450 Mepunga VIC 2:58:11 3:11:06 6:09:17 1
993 Ovens, Aaron Suzuki LTR450 Drysdale VIC 3:11:21 3:12:03 6:23:24 2
928 Clissold, Brett Suzuki LTR450 Pirron Yallock VIC 3:13:48 3:10:28 6:24:16 3
996 Watson, Daryl Honda TRX450R Mt Gambier SA 3:24:12 3:09:49 6:34:01 4
967 Creber, James Yamaha YFZ450 Palmerston NT 3:18:37 3:17:57 6:36:34 5