Inside the life of a Hattah Desert Race marshal

After moving from Sydney to live in Mildura, in northwest Victoria, I quickly realised this was a major motorcycle town. When some locals at the pub heard I rode an adventure bike they told me about “doing the Hattah”. Many of these guys had grown up blasting through the surrounding Mallee scrub on chook-chasers before moving onto series enduro bikes. The best ones had raced the Hattah. Along with the Finke Desert Race, the Hattah Desert Race is widely considered one of Australia’s most demanding and popular off-road motorcycle enduro events. Held annually in July just south of Mildura, this gruelling four-hour race pits hundreds of riders against a brutal, shifting landscape of red dirt and deep sand. It is organised by the North West Victorian Motorcycle Club and has grown from a modest 70-rider club event in 1998 to a massive national spectacle attracting more than 650 riders. It attracts top riders from around the world and some local legends such as dual Dakar Rally winner Toby Price and multi-time winner Daniel Milner, along with Mallee icon Warren Smart.

The event spans an early July weekend when the desert is near freezing in the morning and tolerable by race time. Organised from Juniors to Seniors, the small village of Red Cliffs comes alive with the roar of bikes. Especially on Friday night during scrutineering where bikes undergo safety and mechanical inspections before the Saturday Prologue, where riders compete in a short qualifying time trial. This determines their starting grid position for the main race. The main event features a staggered, single-file start triggered by an ATV pacing vehicle. Up to 500 senior riders sprint into the desert to complete eight laps of a long loop.

The senior course is a 37km circuit that is prepared each year by the dozens of volunteers; and the help of the benevolent land-owner. Around this circuit the rider marshals carve out their own single-tracks to enable them to patrol and rescue downed competitors. The main track begins as a smooth roadway but quickly degrades into a punishing battlefield of whoops and bulldust holes. The layout functions like a high-speed sand motocross track, mixed with traditional off-road endurance terrain. It winds through tight wooded sections, open plains, and flat chat fence-line sprints up to a few kilometres long. Riders must navigate blinding, choking red dust kicked-up by competitors ahead, making vision and navigation highly hazardous. One year, the track flooded to become a series of creeks. The year I volunteered, it had been wet, so vegetation covered the desert scrub, making patrolling its perimeter challenging on my Suzuki DRZ400.

Our rider marshal Hattah training began in Autumn when dozens of volunteers met at the premises of the North West Victorian Motorcycle Club. Nearly all were seasoned motocross riders, some retired and some young guns. At the meeting, the group discussed race plans. Event insurance was the worrying topic for the 2024 race because the insurance company was having second thoughts. Without it, there would be no event. Nevertheless, training plans commenced. Only experienced dirt riders were needed, and full body armour was required, along with registered motorcycles. As an adventure rider, I hardly qualified, so I'd been practising hard on mini-Hattah circuits just outside Mildura, where other riders also practised. Deep, red sand circuits with whoops and drop-offs pushed me to the limits and many falls ensued. Riding single tracks along the Murray River was also done and they were fun, apart from the occasional branch that whacked me off. Once I did a steep climb and crashed over the bars because the front wheel had sunk into a wombat burrow. 

Meantime, back at the race circuit graders were completing the track and the other the main pre-race event was the rider marshal training day, which required us to bash out a single track around the circuit. Nearly all other marshals had serious motorcross weapons – WR450s, KTM EXC 500s, GasGas and other exotica, so the DRZ and its ageing owner stood out. Crashing through tight wooded sections, sliding on wet clay pans, then plunging off sand dunes pushed this rider beyond his limits after doing half the circuit; before retiring to contemplate his rider marshal future. So, yet more practice was done in the red dirt around Mildura as race weekend approached. 

Headlights lit up the highway in the freezing morning light as we all streamed into the race venue about 60 km south of Mildura. Dozens of marshals stood around blazing log fires as competitors queued to register. My camping gear was left at headquarters, before we were sorted into groups of three. Luckily for me, experienced race marshal Mal spotted the newbie and took me under his wing. “You're a helluva long way from Sydney mate,” he shouted as we rode out. Riding to a rise, showed the main part of the pits around the circuit. The terrain, a mix of mallee scrub and salt lakes with a ribbon of red – the track – running through. A low scream came from the pits as the junior event roared into life, the seven-year-olds pushing their 2-stroke 65cc bikes hard. One spun off the track, so I rode down to pull him clear. Another screamed to a halt without a chain, so when the track was clear I dug his snapped chain out of the red dirt.

Later in the day a thunderous roar came from the pits as the seniors got under way. Mostly big four strokes, they roared off over the hill. Our group set off on patrol, fording wet salt pans, gliding along single tracks then crashing down a tall sand dune to quickly cross the race track before the racers arrived. Despite the noise, the beauty of the Mallee surrounded us. Low lying scrub with salt pans shimmering in the sunlight and greenery contrasting with red dirt. Stationed on a fast section of the 37 km track, where speeds of probably 160km/h plus are reached, I witnessed a bad crash, so I passed the word to the group member who had a CB radio, for a call to the ambulance. A sobering experience for this marshal. Another job I did was corralling some of the hundreds of spectators, along with chasing errant photographers from too near the track. 

That night we sat exhausted by our fire with a few beers and swapped anecdotes. No fatalities but a few broken bones among the racers. My group leader Mal, a mechanic by trade, grew up racing the Hattah and comes every year with his bike and caravan to volunteer. Local farmers also came in hotted-up dune buggies to bash the course and patrol. Others in support roles, included women doing food preparation and so on. I quickly realised that the Mildura community are very proud of their race and I was truly humbled to play a small part in it.

The 2026 Penrite Hattah Race is on 3-5 July 2026.