First home was Barryn Westfield who moves to within 5 points of series leader Craig Starnes, with two events to go. The series is determined on best 4 out of 7, so regulars are now in the business of improving on their worst scores, while the less regular can sometimes leap up the table as they get their four scores.
Jenny Visser remains top of the women on 99.4 in spite of the win by Jo Forbes. Not only could we have a close finish but there could even be a tie, since Visser will collect 25 points (best other result) as planner for the final event. And Forbes is almost certain to reap a 25 from one of the remaining two events, giving them both a perfect 100!
Gillian Ingham (who won the very first Wgtn MTBO Champs 5 years ago in Waitarere) was the top Vet woman, but this class has already been tied up by Chris de Roo. Steve Betts' win in Vet men leapfrogged him from seventh in the series into first. Andrew McNeill from New Plymouth was second but Graeme Silcock's third puts him only 1.4 behind Betts, and as planner for the next event he is assured of a further 1.9 under the "best other result" rule. So it's all on in this class, with Michael Wood, Mike Fee and Marco Renalli chasing the third spot.
The event was run by Red Kiwis OC based at Palmerston North though the planner Russell Higham lives at Levin. RKOC has actually run a MTBO event before, back in the 90's on a farmland area near Woodville, so it's good to see it putting on the helmet again. The area was based on the former "Scotts Ferry" foot-o map, which was the 1987 national champs. Unused for many years because of logging, it proved a good venue for riding, attracting New Plymouth and Hawkes Bay participants as well as those from Wellington and locals from Manawatu. There werre 55 riders, a record in the 6-year history of the Wellington series.
A generic issue all events face is the treatment of roads with big gravel: though "maintained" roads fit the specification for solid lines on the map they can be quite slow, and the speed value might be better shown by dashed lines.
Results and Points have been loaded. The next (second-last) event in the Wellington Series will be at St Pats Forest at Upper Hutt on 20 August.