Toby Price came to the 2026 Sunraysia Safari with one more Australian off-road event he wanted to tick off the bucket list. Four days later, he left Wentworth as the outright winner.
Price and co-driver Ben Searcy have won the 2026 Sunraysia Safari after more than 1,000 kilometres of competitive running across some of the toughest country the event could throw at them. And they did it in perhaps one of the more unlikely outright-winning cars in the field, a Subaru WRX.
The pair completed the nine competitive stages in 10 hours, 58 minutes and 36 seconds, finishing just 1 minute and 32 seconds ahead of defending Sunraysia winner Dean Herridge and Sam Hill in the Maximum Motorsport Subaru Crosstrek. It capped off a fascinating battle between the two Subaru crews across four long days in the NSW outback.
Price Takes on a Different Kind of Safari
There aren’t too many things left for Toby Price to prove when it comes to going fast in the dirt. He has won Dakar on a motorcycle, conquered Finke and competed at the highest level of off-road racing both here and overseas. But Sunraysia was different.
This was Price’s first attempt at Australia’s four-day cross-country rally in a car, and the challenge wasn’t just about keeping his foot down. Sunraysia is a blind rally. There is no recce and no opportunity to learn the roads beforehand. Crews work from the road book while dealing with changing surfaces, long competitive sections, navigation and the simple challenge of keeping the car alive for four consecutive days.
Before the event Price described Sunraysia as one he had always wanted to add to his bucket list. By Saturday afternoon, he had done a little more than simply compete in it. He had won it.
“This is a really special win,” said Price.
“Every time I drive this Subaru WRX it blows me away, it keeps surprising me what this car can do. To take a production WRX and come away with the overall win speaks volume about the capability and engineering of the car, and the incredible effort of everyone involved.
“The Sunraysia Safari is a tough event that pushes both driver and car to the absolute limit. We faced a huge variety of conditions across the four days which made it tricky, but the WRX never missed a beat. The team prepared an outstanding package and it’s awesome to reward that effort with a win.”
Co-driver Ben Searcy may be one of Australia’s most experienced co-drivers, with years of competition at national level, but Sunraysia presented a very different challenge. This was his first true navigational-style cross-country event, where keeping the car on course is just as important as calling the road ahead, and Searcy admitted there were some nerves before the start and during the rally. For a co-driver used to conventional rallying, the Safari demanded a different rhythm, greater focus on navigation and a whole new way of managing the event from inside the car.
Four Days Where Anything Can Happen
That variety is what makes Sunraysia such a different motorsport event. Over four days the field was sent deep into the country surrounding Wentworth, tackling everything from fast station roads and sandy tracks to ruts, technical navigation and long sections of heavy grass. It is an event where outright pace certainly matters, but so does judgement.
Push too hard and the outback has plenty of ways of bringing a campaign to an abrupt end. Lose time with a mechanical problem or navigation mistake and hundreds of competitive kilometres can quickly become an exercise in catching up. That makes a margin of just 1 minute and 32 seconds after almost 11 hours of competitive driving remarkably small.
Herridge Backs Up His 2025 Victory
Sitting on the other side of that battle was a driver who already knew exactly what it took to win Sunraysia. Dean Herridge and Sam Hill arrived as the defending winners after taking victory in 2025, campaigning the Subaru Crosstrek. Rather than simply watching the high-profile new recruit disappear into the distance, Herridge kept Price honest throughout the event.
The result was an impressive one-two for Maximum Motorsport and consecutive Sunraysia podiums for Herridge and Hill.
“To get a one-two for the team is a fantastic result and I’m absolutely delighted for everyone involved,” Herridge said.
“The gap back to third was massive, which is a huge credit to the team, the cars and Subaru, and everyone who put the effort in to get us here.
“You don’t draft someone like Toby just to make up the numbers. You want to see what the car can do and what he can do with it, and he absolutely delivered. Hats off to him, he drove incredibly well and got everything out of the WRX.
“I’m also really proud of what we achieved with the Crosstrek. To come away with second and put two Subarus at the front of the field shows what a strong package we’ve got and what the team is capable of.”
An Unlikely Safari Winner
One of the things that has always made the Sunraysia Safari interesting is the variety of machinery. The 2026 field again featured everything from dedicated cross-country machines, through to Pajeros, Jackaroos, Rodeos, conventional rally cars and a pair of Subarus that looked very different to the traditional image of a Safari weapon.
Price’s WRX remained fundamentally based around the current production model, prepared for rally competition with the necessary safety and suspension changes. On paper it was a very different proposition to some of the purpose-built off-road machinery surrounding it. Out in the stages, that mattered considerably less.
Price and Searcy led the event, survived four days of Safari punishment and ultimately brought the WRX back to Wentworth as the fastest car in the field.
For Price, it is another major trophy to add to a career already overflowing with them. For Sunraysia, it produced another memorable chapter. A Dakar winner came to the NSW outback to have his first crack at the Safari in a car. He won’t need to come back to tick it off the bucket list. He’s already won it.
