Well it seems that its that time of year again and we have made the usual trip to the middle of Australia for the Finke Desert Race. This will be my 7th year up here supporting Paul "Smitty" Smith, this year once again riding a Honda TRX700XX but with a twist, after all this time I am finally going to have a ride myself. With the help of a few mates (thanks Noodles, Jumbo Danny, Mick@47, Scooter and Shane Hardiman) I've been hooked up with a Can Am DS450 XMX with a bit of gear, some Fox Shocks, a Precision steering damper and OMF bead locks with Artrax MX Trax tyres all round.

There has been some unseasonal weather up here with rain all week until today (Friday) so I got the pleasure of putting the final touches on Smittys 700XX and and my DS under a pit tent in the rain at the Desert Palms Resort where we are staying. On top of that I've also had to finish putting together my boss from Scootarounds Outlaw IRS which came up here minus a rear axle assembly that arrived late yesterday afternoon so most of this morning has been spent sorting out the back half of his quad.

The Desert Palms Resort is a hot spot for quad riders to stay when they visit Alice Springs for this event so we've got to catch up with a number of regular riders that we see every year up here including our friends from the Can Am Xteam who travelled up here at the same time as us with their 44 foot race trailer. The Xteam riders this year for Finke are Chad McKay, Mitch Van Vliet, Jake Van Vliet and Darrell "Bullet" Knight and well be keeping tabs on them for the weekend too.

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