‘Wakatipu Shore’s’ Adrian Loo brings us the low down from Round 1 of this year’s NZ MTB Club race series in New Zealand. Video too…

Round 1 of the NZ MTB Club kicked off this weekend up the Remarkables in Queenstown. Our flat was host to many racers with the back yard looking like a camp site and the lounge packed out, over 20 people staying every night.

The week lead up to nationals had many a big nights of beers, buckets, girls and riding. With regular missions to the rope swing, downhill and dirt jumps. Come race day everyone was looking forward to the track and was amped to race. Resident rope swing legend Sam Baker suffered a horrific wrist injury when attempting the undisclosed triple back flip rope grab; this unfortunately put him out of the race that weekend

Other racers found in the house included the Chinese-Hawaiian mafia lead by James Hoe, whose calls of Haaaiii got Nation, Rupert and Hampdog in pure race mode. The regular Dunedin and Central boys were staying alongside Bens Jaffa mates. We have also had the pleasure of Wyn(tv) Masters staying with us, he originally came down to find his “it girl” and ended up racing nationals, blatantly a weak attempt to please his fans and secure free drinks at Robbies poon palace called buffalos.

The track was an old school Grass track and there was only 2 little jumps and about 5 berms on the whole track. Drifts were the name of the game in the weekend and there were plenty of wild moments from everyone. Luckily the track was lined with soft pillow like bushes called Matagouri. There sharp prickly exterior not only allowed for a nice crash pad but also gave you huge amounts of prickles in your body after a rag.
[line up pic]
Racing went well for people staying at the flat; with Joe Nation taking 2nd place in Pro and Wyn Masters taking 5th place. Conor (Free ride) Macfarlane bunny hopped down to get 4th in senior men. Sophie cleaned up the u19 woman’s competition in the stacked field of 57 junior women. Adrian and Ben both had huge crashes that each cost them about 1 minute, the result of a complete race run from either of them would have seen them beat the fastest time of the day by at least 30sec. The highlight of the weekend was seeing “Troy Brosnan” doing 4 race runs and pumping out 5 times the practice runs of anyone else on the hill.

There was a team of Troy Brosnans ripping it up all weekend.

A successful after party followed the event and in true downhiller standards shit got wild. The majority of party goers were slipping over the fine line of the law but everyone kept it clean and responsible.
The NZ MTB Cup continues this coming weekend in Dunedin, with the second round of the Downhill series on Friday/Saturday the 13th and 14th, and the first round of the Cross-Country Series on Sunday the 15th. Both races are taking place at Logan High School at the base of Signal Hill.

Thanks to Emmerson Wilken for the sweet pics.

Here’s an awesome edit of the racing made by Tom Cuthbert.

http://mpora.com/videos/8CXOROz8L
MTBNZ Downhil Nationals – Rd 1 Queenstown

Until next time. Peace]

Results:

Elite Men
1 George Brannigan (Havelock North) 2:26.25
2 Joseph Nation (Christchurch) 2:28.82
3 Matthew Scoles (Alexandra) 2:28.93

Elite Women
1 Sarah Atkin (Wellington) 2:51.08
2 Harriet Latchem (Queenstown) 3:04.61
3 Veronique Sandler (Nelson) 3:13.63

U19 Men
1 Reece Potter (Golden Bay) 2:32.29
2 Leo Sandler (Nelson) 2:32.99
3 Loius Hamilton (Rotorua) 2:34.21

U17 Men
1 Josh McCombie (Dunedin) 2:38.54
2 Carl Goodwin (Kaiapoi) 2:52.07
3 James Minty (Christchurch) 2:52.67

Senior Men
1 Jake Boylett (Nelson) 2:32.89
2 Scott McGregor (Te Puke) 2:33.06
3 Carl Edmonson (Whakatane) 2:36.01

Masters 30-39 Men
1 Derek Winwood (Nelson) 2:34.32
2 Kelly McGarry (Nelson/Queenstown) 2:39.12
3 Jamie Nicoll (Nelson) 2:40.04

Masters 40+ Men
1 Darryn Henderson (Christchurch) 2:46.26
2 Mike Williamson (Wellington) 2:56.38
3 Vaughan Love (wellington) 3:01.87

Open Women
1 Adrienne Hooper (Waitakere City) 3:07.94
2 Naomi Wilson (Queenstown) 3:08.80
3 Alanna Columb (Queenstown) 3:10.78

Junior Women
1 Sophie Tyas (Auckland) 3:00.12
2 Phoebe Coers (Wanaka) 3:35.03

U15 Men
1 Oliver Jarman (Christchurch) 3:00.28
2 Carlos Wilson (Dunedin) 3:04.20
3 Mathew Gilan (Queenstown) 3:13.46

Full results can be found here www.mtbnz.org