Unbelievable - The SDCC Story
The 1987 Inaugural Simpson Desert Classic included entrants as young as 13 riding BMX bikes. One of them finished all the stages. The race was shortened to six stages because of unrideable conditions (The course followed the French Line).
The 1988 race didn't go anywhere near the Simpson Desert. Because of flooding in the desert, the race started at Kulgera on the Stuart Hwy near the NT/SA border and ran along the back roads past Ayers Rock finishing at The Olgas.
1992 Race. Cyclist No:23 Stephan Vanderhee had a bad run with punctures during the afternoon and when he ran out of tubes, elected to ride the final 30 kilometers on the wheel rim without any tyre at all. He made it to the finish line with only 10 minutes to spare. He worked on his rim with steel wool and a file until about 11pm, rubbing out all the damaged sections of the wheel and then lined up for the start of the next morning section with a new tube and his original tyre still intact.
The 1992 Race was plagued with rain problems. Many vehicles got bogged on the way to the start and some were two days later than they had planned getting to the gathering point. One rider rode the last 65k to the start line because his support crew were hopelessly bogged. They eventually extricated themselves from the bog and arrived around midnight.
In 1995, Bob and Jayne Simpson rode the race on a tandem mountain bike achieving 100%.
Jack Oldfield became the first person to take out first place for 3 consecutive years, 1998, 1999 and 2000.