Trucks are crucial to getting the Finke Desert Race teams to one of the world’s greatest offroad races. ROADBOSS catches up with four teams and their transporters as the race teams rolled into town
Peter Corrigan
Peter Corrigan is a builder by trade, a former farmer and a bit of a truckie. Heckled by his son Connor, claiming he’s not a real truckie, our discussions around his old K100E at a truck stop north of Coober Pedy told me otherwise.
“It’s probably the best truck I’ve ever owned,” he says excitedly. “She’s been a great old girl, it’s probably done a couple million kilometres – plus it’s B-double rated, the whole lot, so it’s barely working pulling this.”
Part of the Trevor Chandler race team for this year’s Finke, Peter is transporting the precious cargo. Opening up the rear of the old Barker trailer at the truck stop reveals the spectacular racing buggy.
Peter and his son Connor, who’ve been racing for nearly 15 years, struck a good deal with Trevor to get to their first Finke – Connor to be the race navigator and Peter to transport the buggy.
“I said, well, look, if you’re going Finke, let’s cut the logistics down. We’ll throw everything we possibly can on my truck,” he says.
“It’s been a fantastic drive. I love it once you get out on that open road, the Stuart Highway’s awesome.
I’ve just flicked it to cruise control, put the music on, sit at 100km/h and just leave all your worries behind.
“Compared to the roads down home, they’re rough as guts. This trip, I’ve just flicked it to cruise control, put the music on, sit at 100km/h and just leave all your worries behind.”
Digging deeper, it’s obvious that trucks are in Peter’s blood. Lucindale-based, he left the family farm near Melbourne years ago to start his steel-fab shed business, which gave him the taste of the trucking life.
“The trucks are part of my job. I’ve always driven, I’ve come off the farm driving old trucks and I’ve always loved them,” Peter says in between bites of his bacon and egg burger.
“But I do prefab steel sheds now, a lot of hay sheds. So where I’m based at Lucindale, we go out to all the big farms.
“I get the sheds fabricated in Melbourne, and that’s the idea of the trucks. I just truck all my stuff back.
“It’s a great truck, not as good as the new ones unfortunately, but it’s old school just like me,” he adds.
Michael Dolan
In order to move all of his race equipment around the country, Michael Dolan and his MrDiggit race team needed something with plenty of horsepower and enough room to be able to squeeze it all in.
So, for the self-confessed truck man, Michael’s Freightliner Columbia was the perfect addition to the team.
It’s one of the last of the Caterpillar-powered Freightliners, which Michael is pretty chuffed about, and has a 10-speed three-pedal Eaton transmission. It has only just clicked over 100,000km since he bought it four years ago off a group in Sydney who were using it as an American-style motorhome.
Outside of racing trophy trucks, Michael’s life revolves around his family’s asphalt business, MrAsphalt, a small asphalt company that specialises in high-quality asphalt work.
“We do a lot of the local councils, the water board, energy providers, all that type of stuff,” he explains.
“The business does help fund the racing, and obviously the Freightliner is part of the team as well.
“At the end of the day, we’re very passionate about what we do and very passionate about our work, but you’ve got to have your hobbies on the side, and this is just one that I really enjoy and I have for a long time.”
Michael got into off-road motorsports through rock crawling (an extreme form of off-road driving) about 15 years ago and what originally started out as a “little bit of social stuff” quickly moved into something a little more serious.
You’ve got to have your hobbies on the side, and this is just one that I really enjoy and I have for a long time.
From there he went out and bought a UTV and started undertaking a few of the faster events which eventually lured him into trophy truck racing.
“I was very competitive, I did some travel overseas in the US and ended up buying an ultra4, which is basically a rock crawler, but with big horsepower. They’re fast through the desert, and you can still crawl through the rocks and do all the technical stuff,” he explains to my blank face.
“I really enjoy going fast, so I thought, what’s the ultimate of going fast? It’s a trophy truck. So, I ended up buying a used trophy truck about seven years ago,” he says.
“I wasn’t very competitive, but it was a heap of fun – I did it with my dad, and I loved it.”
Red Bull in hand, it’s clear Michael has a genuine appreciation for machinery and for his racing – they come part and parcel.
“I love my trucks, I always have, even as a small child,” Michael tells me.
“I’ve always been passionate about my trucks, so much so I can’t wait for my next one,” he jokes.
“The Freightliner purrs, there’s not much that’ll keep up with it. Obviously, being a single axle and only a 10-ton trailer behind it, with 440hp, this thing picks up and goes quite well.
I really enjoy going fast, so I thought, what’s the ultimate of going fast? It’s a trophy truck.
“I’ve also got a K200 sitting at home that I love,” he says like a giggly school kid.
“But I think my next transporter will have to be a 909. And it’s probably not going to go work,” he jokes. “It might just sit in my shed at home.”
You could see in his mannerisms that Finke was his paradise – a man who’d prefer the dust of the desert than to be clean in the city.
But if Finke is a paradise, perhaps behind the wheel of his trucks is his heaven?
Dan McKenzie
As a Finke-first timer, it’s by pure chance I met Dan McKenzie of CMS Racing, a Finke veteran.
Dan wears many hats. Firstly, he’s the team manager, then he’s the race driver and most importantly, the transporter driver.
Propped next to the team’s off-white Kenworth K200, Dan talks proudly about team owner and driver, Brett Comiskey, the two-time world champion team he manages and the cast of thousands who help make a race team tick.
“We’ve got some great people in our corner,” he says.
“The team is still rolling in, currently we have five in total, but by tomorrow afternoon we’ll probably have about 16.”
Dan and the CMS Racing team arrived the day before, having trekked the 36 hours across from Yatala on the Gold Coast.
When he isn’t racing trophy trucks at Finke or teaching people how to ride motorbikes, he’s driving cranes and heavy machinery for a living – so life behind the team’s Kenworth is easy going.
“Yeah, I’ve been around trucks and machinery forever,” he says when asked about the truck.
Our Kenworth is amazing – it’s our main transporter, we tow trailers with it. The drive over is part of the adventure.
“Our Kenworth is amazing – it’s our main transporter, we tow trailers with it. The drive over is part of the adventure.
“It’s nice and comfortable, and it does nearly everything we throw at it. We’ve had it for about four years – the truck is from Brown and Hurley and the body was made by Frontline Trailers.
“We’ve also got an Isuzu curtain truck. The curtain truck will go down the other end of the track, it’s the Swiss army knife, we throw everything into it.”
So, what is the K200 transporting? Well, the CMS Racing team competes in the trophy truck category with its custom-made trucks. One’s a Brenthel and one’s a Tisco, Dan says.
“They’re handmade in America, both with Chevy-based power plants. They’ve got paddle shift, king shocks – the works.
“We’re just like a travelling circus,” Dan says about the community that is Finke.
“Every one of us here is friends, we can go next door and we can borrow a part or something off next door and it doesn’t matter if they’re competitors, they’re still going to help us out with parts or anything.
“Only problem is, we’ve got a big transporter so everyone automatically thinks we’ve got everything,” Dan jokes.
Jamie Henderson
For Jamie Henderson, Finke is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to spend time with his three boys, he tells me. “It’s something we like doing, it brings us together.”
It’s also an opportunity to answer a few personal doubts – you see, he broke his neck three years ago.
Only his second year at Finke, Jamie has arrived at Darwin via the Gold Coast with his 2011 Mack Trident. The General Manager of Everwilling Group, a crane hire company, Jamie like many other Faces of Finke lives and breathes machinery.
Upon arriving at the Darwin Showgrounds, Jamie’s black Mack Trident and trailer instantly drew my gaze. A knock on the door to say g’day was all it took to get Jamie spruiking his rig.
“We bought this Mack two-and-a-half years ago,” he says.
“I thought racing was simple and thought everyone could do it, I couldn’t work out why everyone said it was so hard. And the last two-and-a-half years I’ve worked out it is pretty hard,” he laughs.
“The logistics is such a big part of it, it’s a full-time job for me now. The boys love it, so I’m now invested as it’s something that brings us together. It’s this opportunity to come and hang out and do things as a family.”
Having UDs through his business, Jamie was adamant he needed something with a bonnet for the transporter job. The classic story of the right place, right time and right price has given Jamie a new pride and joy.
The boys love it, so I’m now invested as it’s something that brings us together.
“I just wanted a bit of a show-off truck, plus I needed a bonnet;” he jokes. “I absolutely love it.”
With his 400hp LS3-powered racing trophy truck peeking out of the rear of his trailer, and Gary the Bulldog by his side, Jamie mentions he hopes for a top-20 result, but just finishing is a success.
Hooked on the excitement and the adrenaline of the sport, he even confesses to being scared “sometimes” when behind the wheel – all part of the allure of races like Finke I presume.
But after breaking his neck three years ago, surely off-road racing isn’t the preferred hobby to return to?
“That’s probably another reason why I’m doing this,” Jamie explains. “Because you can’t possibly have a broken neck and do this sport, right? So, I’m trying to prove that I don’t have a broken neck and I’m not in pain.
“Look, I don’t know (what entices people to the sport), but ever since I was a kid, I used to watch these trucks and these big cars come out here and always thought jeez I’d love the opportunity to do this but never really thought I could.
“It’s the adrenaline of this sport – I’ve said this before, but it’s actually really scary, it’s something that really scares us. But it’s nice to do something that really makes your hair stand up.
“And the journey’s not too dissimilar itself.Getting here, I reckon half the fun is driving out here with my sons,” he adds.
