Toby Price: From country Aussie to world champion | 60 Minutes Australia

[Music] out in that vast ancient tortured red landscape of Central Australia a timeless place of legend and myth a new hero is emerged it's a different world out here when you get out on these tracks it's it's just you in the machine and and you just try and do it you can just want to go out there and go as fast as possible [Music] the ground is rough and the bike should be pitching and shattering but somehow he's floating above it all I know all the time his name is toby price best in australia the best in the world [Music] um this is pretty much here born and bred country boy and just chasing dreams and that's come from riding a motorcycle a young age I've always just had ambitions to be number one in the world toby is a champion of a new tribe of the Nevernever we've gathered here for the annual Fink desert race at 452 kilometer round trip from Alice Springs to the tiny town of think right in the middle of Australia each June long weekend they raced down one day back the next flat-out no holds barred they come race their vehicle bikes quads anything so it's to see an widest place on earth becomes of noisy's pretty much that's it we come here and we we shake the ground up to get a real feel for the speed that these blokes are moving at you've got to get down on the track in a way that I probably wouldn't be allowed to do in the city Toby's closing on me and speeds up from 180 kilometres or now he'll be on me in seconds which is hardly enough hardly enough time to think about getting out of the way they're all out there is I think there's about four hundred and eighty odd competitors in the bikes this year and and yeah four hundred and seventy nine of them all want to beat me so I reckon it's like the Melbourne Cup that an outsider can win hold an outsider once I blew in in 2010 and won on my first attempts so she's cute yeah who is this guy who's this Toby price guy that's come along and and won this race Pauline do you remember the first day that he the first time he got on the back yeah was that interest that there in the yard and he wanted to get on us in about four crashes later and then the bike went back in the shed that was not a good thing well you practice about two weeks and then he um went back out and said get the bike out then according to Toby's parents Pauline and John he got on and never got off again Toby proved to be unnatural when he pulls his helmet on I'm sure toodle horns growl and it sees a totally different person on the bike so yeah the word soon spread about this young tearaway farm boy from Hillston New South Wales and won his first Australian title at the age of seven but with the glory came the pain that was my Mother's Day present their racing I got a phone call that he broke his arm and then 20 minutes later I got another phone call and said he broke the other arm as well and that was happy Mother's Day mom yeah two broken arms on Mother's Day four years later he broke them again but it was much worse Toby almost lost his left arm the scar is still brutal to look at um yeah my Polly's not a real good good one but some twenty eight lose twenty seven broken bones so yeah worth I'm being here three vertebrae in my neck which was back in 2013 that was there a bit of a close call it was a shocker that was a shocker that one [Music] only three years ago Toby lay in an American hospital bed within millimeters of becoming quadriplegic his head in a halo brace the medical staff said they could fix Toby but it would cost half a million u.s. dollars as soon as the insurance company has said that they're not within two hours we were out of the hospital God and time in a wheelchair in a halo halo and and hanging between quadriplegia and whatever whatever so Toby flew back to Australia and thanks to Medicare was operated on for free for titanium screws were inserted on each side of his neck along with three runs yes I'm fuse from c5 through to t1 of my neck and but these screws and rods in there so it's as I always kind of joked everyone in here my head screwed on literally and seemed like on being a smarter guy now but Toby was the youngest of three kids in the price household that was also Matthew and Amanda nicknamed Minnie Minnie was born severely disabled yet with loving care managed to survive until 2011 I miss Erin you don't and never even expected in life that she wouldn't be here now and but for sure it's definitely made me appreciate what what we're doing and I'm sure like mom and dad say she's we've meet somewhere and look and ask me on I'm pretty sure she was I keep me safe that time why I broke my neck so um that's the way you got to look at it appalling tragically you know what it's like to lose a child does that make it harder to let him do this stuff yeah it does but I think in in Toby situation it's that's all toab knows but nothing would slow him down neither the loss of many nor a broken neck in January this year toby won the dakar rally the unofficial world championship for off-road racing he rode for 14 days over 9,500 kilometers to become the first long european and the first australian ever declaimed for me to come in and win it on my second go I'm a very fast learner I watch and learn very quickly and if it's something that I'm interested in I'll put 100 and 100 percent into it everything I can to be successful at it sadly I don't have a lot of experience of winning what's it like it's best feeling ever you are yeah put it in the words it's just yeah once you get it once you want more of it so I'm greedy for victory a little bit you put it there something like that you definitely get greedy for it so - the past week and out in the Finke desert where men and women on four wheels and on to try to conquer the outback and where the star attraction is toby price among the fans was 16 year old Rosie Dre the youngest female rider in this year's race it's toby price hero of yours yeah about 12 months ago he sent me a little video saying to get keen and get training for this hey Rosie hey um yes when you turn 16 make sure you come out here to the pink race we definitely want to see you come out and have a crack so ya get ready for it and we'll see you next year that's pretty big I mean that's the world champion encouraging a kid on the way up yeah do you reckon you could beat him one day he'll know [Applause] they're our favorites but no guarantees in desert racing more so this year because Toby was attempting the impossible to win not only the bike leg but the car division as well only two days from the race start Toby is on a practice run in his so-called trophy truck when disaster strikes the rear suspension falls apart and Toby rolls five times [Music] still to count this race day approaches and the team resurrect the truck that's next on 60 minutes toby prices truck has rolled at least five times in the dust it's impossible to count people race to see whether Toby and his navigator Kyle Pfitzner are okay amazingly they're able to clamber out of the wreckage are you feeling all right that's the best thing about four wheels you're strapped in to well I'd still be laying here so I'd be pretty waiting on a early copper at that speed lucky for me I wasn't in the truck with him but I was kitted up for Toby to take me on the next run when did you know something wasn't right when I was laying on my side good said quick I think everyone's just happy you're all right I'm not worried about that it's like I say I don't wanna bash my body up but I just don't want written equipment toby fears his dreams of winning the car category of the Finke desert race live ruined in the dust but the man who built the truck American Rick geyser is far less pessimistic is it cactus now or would you be able to put it back together no we're gonna go back to a workshop here in Alice Springs and we're gonna put it back together it's not going to be the prettiest of the body parts on it the panel's but mechanically wise we'll get it back in where it's already to grace again J he'd be able to race in this this weekend yes sir that the wreck goes back to a workshop in Alice Springs and the pit crew get cracking out here the cars are as tough as the people and incredibly by the next morning the trophy truck was ready to roll the game as good as new Toby pretty quiet Oh almost we've got a few little battle wounds on the car but it's look uh for what it was it yesterday as you've seen it and now what it is now the crews I've got on board but this has done an amazing job the important thing is does your mum know about this unfortunately mum does know about this they surprised me and visited out here for the weekend and coming to watch all this so it's yeah well I'm sure my might be watching today though will you be watching closely today I'll watch the start like I normally do but after that I just don't don't wanna know let's go we don't better give it a double yeah stay smooth slow side side then Toby bros into the desert on the first leg down to think 18 cars and 226 punishing kilometers ahead four wheels he is class rookie but he sure as hell doesn't drive like one toby is like a man possessed forcing his way up through the field passing one then another in this racing if the slower vehicle doesn't move over you're allowed to deliver a none too subtle nudge you [Music] by the time this leg is finished Toby will have overtaken 14 rivals but when he gets to think he has to run to catch a plane back to Alice to do it all over again on the bike this isn't a sprint it's a marathon you I need you to win but I don't want you to take any risk here we go tonight then it's another hug for mum and dad before Toby heads back to the start line for the bike leg [Music] at this stage of endurance his stamina clearly shows that a great rider is also a great athlete man and his machine are at one with the desert toby price is a rider without peer he travels so quickly the helicopters of trouble catching in little under two hours he literally flies into Fink two and a half minutes clear of his nearest rival the race is only half over but for some including young Rosie it's already finished well about 15 caves in I'm not myself out and it was a big crash but I got up and kept on going but then I had another crash near the hundred K mark and it just brought me down and I just couldn't do it anymore how are you feeling now I'm very sore but I'm fine she'll be back yeah I'd love to come back and finish it one day one day be the first girl to win hey maybe the next day on the return leg Toby price is roaring back along the pink track towards Alice Springs in his trophy truck [Music] he's blown a cylinder but that doesn't stop him he manages to finish in second place [Music] but there is no time for celebration immediately he's back on a plane for another trip down to think now to jump on his bike for Toby this isn't exhausting it's exhilarating it's for me it is exhilarating and it's like an addiction I just all I want to do is every time I get on that bike and throw my leg over over that bike it's girls fast as I can and I don't I always just had that bit of a theory that the faster I go the quicker the events done like the desert legend he has become there is no catching him now poby price roars through the red dust of Central Australia and into the history books become the Finke desert champion for a fifth time comes down my caving back how proud are you just I'm busting I don't know how to explain it how much you love him yeah well as we say in our family like with min your source I love your face so that says it every everything yeah yeah Bobby's faithful love his face and yeah that's a little Ethan [Music] what do I say terrific it's not too bad kappa violets being a good way again [Applause] hello I'm Charles wooly thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes Australia make sure you subscribe to our channel you can also download the 9 now app for 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Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 109,701

Rating: 4.9168053 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Ellen Fanning, Peter, Overton, Karl Stefanovic, Ray Martin, Peter Stefanovic, Jana Wendt, Jeff McMullen, Jennifer Byrne, Mike Munro, Richard Carleton, Tracey Curro, Paul Barry, Peter Harvey, Michael Usher, Ross Coulthart, George Negus, Ian Leslie, Gerald Stone, Toby Price, daredevil, BMX, bike, Dakar Rally, australian champion, sport

Id: rL-aDUBaa4I

Length: 19min 28sec (1168 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 17 2019