PRICE & SIMMONDS 1-2 AT HATTAH DESERT RACE

KTM’s Toby Price and Tye Simmonds dominated the top placings in this year’s Hattah Desert Race near Mildura, finishing first and second respectively.


Price once again demonstrated why he is Australia’s King of the Desert, showing complete mastery of the unique Hattah conditions aboard his KTM 500 EXC to win his fifth career Hattah race.

“I’m stoked. It was a good run,” told Price. “Starting from the front definitely helped. The dust was thicker in the first part of the race before the track chewed and exposed a little bit of moisture in the sandy parts.

“In the first couple of laps I put on a really good charge and pulled a bit of a gap, and after that I settled into a comfortable pace in and felt really good.”

The first rider away after setting the fastest time in Saturday’s prologue, Price exploded out to an early lead before settling into a steady race-winning pace that yielded a 3-minute victory over Simmonds.

Green hit problems right away when he ran off the track and struck a tree causing him to lose front brakes on the opening lap. A quick pit stop after lap one saw the team get back in action having dropped back to fifth place.

Moving into fourth and then into third – he stayed until the completion of the race…

“The mistake on the opening lap cost me a better result. I felt I could have ran the leader’s pace but when you lose so much time on the first lap to a rider like Toby, you don’t often get the chance to make it back up.”

Two-stroke mounted Daniel Sanders (KTM) gave away a mountain of top speed to the big-bore 4-strokes early on, but as the race went on he took over fourth place at the start of the final lap.

Yamaha’s Beau Ralston completed the top five.

PENRITE 2015 HATTAH DESERT RACE

1 Toby PRICE KTM EXC 500 3:35:22.774

2 Tye SIMMONDS KTM EXC 500 3:38:22.295        

3 Josh GREEN Yamaha 3:40:23.294

4 Daniel SANDERS KTM 300 EXC 3:43:54.022

5 Beau RALSTON Yamaha 3:46:24.385

6 Nathan TRIGG KTM SXF 450 3:47:01.937            

7 Glenn KEARNEY Husqvarna FE501 3:47:39.980

8 Louis CALVIN KTM 500 3:49:05.107

9 Lachlan STANFORD Husqvarna FE 501 3:49:55.793

10 Jarrod BEWLEY Husqvarna FE 501 3:50:50.757